Kliptown Gumboot Dancers Energize Groton
Stomping, chanting, and unbridled delight rocked the Campbell Performing Arts Center (CPAC) Tuesday night, when the Kliptown Youth Program Gumboot Dancers brought their colorful, rhythmic performance to Groton.
It didn’t matter that the songs were in Zulu; the energy was electric, and the mood levitated along with the noise.
Gumboot dancing is traditional in South African mines; the dancers wear boots like miners', but beat them like percussion instruments as they dance. The dancers—including employees, a current student, and two recent graduates of the Kliptown Youth Academy—accompanied their bootslapping dances with chants and songs, some of them upbeat cheers, others Zulu chants of protest.
The Kliptown Youth Program provides educational support and after-school activities to the Soweto Township called Kliptown, near Johannesburg, South Africa. It encourages children to seek education and contribute to the betterment of their community. The group’s leader, Thulani Madondo, exhorted Groton students to appreciate their gift of a fine education, and to thank their parents. He marveled at Groton’s theater building, saying that it would be easier to keep students in school if Soweto had such a facility. Madondo's extraordinary efforts have been recognized internationally; CNN named him one its Top Ten Heroes for 2012.
During the afternoon, the Kliptown dancers taught gumboot dancing to a group of Groton students in the McBaine Studio Theater, a black box space in the CPAC. During the evening performance, those students took to the stage, to thunderous excitement.
The Kliptown Youth Program provides educational support and after-school activities to the Soweto Township called Kliptown, near Johannesburg, South Africa. It encourages children to seek education and contribute to the betterment of their community. The group’s leader, Thulani Madondo, exhorted Groton students to appreciate their gift of a fine education, and to thank their parents. He marveled at Groton’s theater building, saying that it would be easier to keep students in school if Soweto had such a facility. Madondo's extraordinary efforts have been recognized internationally; CNN named him one its Top Ten Heroes for 2012.
During the afternoon, the Kliptown dancers taught gumboot dancing to a group of Groton students in the McBaine Studio Theater, a black box space in the CPAC. During the evening performance, those students took to the stage, to thunderous excitement.
Visit Groton’s Live page for photos from the performance.
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