Kuru Dance Festival and Various Photos

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Written: Monday October 12th, 2009 at 9:00am
For the past two weeks the TOCaDI staff members have been organizing the Kuru Dance Festival of 2009. Unlike those held in past years, this year’s dance festival was broken down into two mini festivals. The first one was held in a district called Qabo on September 5th and the second one was held in Shaikarawe (a small village near Shakawe of about 300 people) from October 9th-11th. TOCaDI was responsible for organizing the mini festival in Shaikarawe and it was the first time that TOCaDI has been the host. Because of this, few things went as planned but overall the event was a success. The purpose of the Kuru Dance Festival is for the San culture to be shared and this year San dance groups from 8 different villages attended. I was part of the committee that was responsible for creating the program, organizing the dance attire and organizing the transportation of all of the dancers. Unfortunately both of my partners left town during this planning process so I did not have an easy time doing this, however, I did receive help from other people in the office. In the end, all of the dancers arrived and we only lost two items of dance attire (which was shared between all of the groups at the event), so I think that I did my part.
On October 9th, the dancers arrived and I spent the evening helping set up giant tents in the dark. Trust me, that was no easy task, especially since some of the equipment was missing. I was also not exactly comfortable walking around in the bush in the dark while wearing flip flops where there are things that bite and sting. Luckily I was only the victim of mosquitoes. Cow liver and rice was cooked over a fire and we ate it with our hands while the San did some freestyle dancing, singing and instrument playing. The best part was that it was not part of the program so it was completely natural and not for any purpose other than for their own enjoyment. On October 10th, which was the main day of the event, breakfast was served at about 6 and then various forms of entertainment took place throughout the day. Many guests were invited but there were no tourists. There were about 120 people at the event as well as the people of Shaikarawe. It was extremely hot that day and Shaikarawe ran out of water so that was a problem. On the morning of October 11th, breakfast was served, each group was able to record two songs and then departure was at noon.

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Comments

[Portia]

Gud work
Simply breath taking pictures and captivating such profound meaning.