Dance as a Form of Expression

Dance has been an expressive form of art for many centuries, especially in African cultures. People have danced as a celebratory gesture, for entertainment and even as a plea to the gods to bring rain.

And through time, variations of dance have developed and evolved, which is how many moves like the ‘dab’ or the popular South African dance move ‘vosho’ came about.

But as much as it is seen a hobby, dance is a serious sport around the world and many opportunities can be created out of it. However, would this apply to Namibians? An organisation that aims to change the stereotype about dance is the NamJive team who go around schools and not only entertain, but educate youth about dance.

NamJive is a youth inspiring programme which was established by Ricardo Kameeta and Carmichael Boois. According to Kameeta, “the whole idea behind Namjive came upon us as a need to fulfill and motivate the youth in both leisure and educational activities”.

And with this in mind, the team visited several schools in Windhoek to dance for them, usually during the hours they are not active with their education.

Stating that Namibia is a place of many talents, Kameta also felt that it needed to be exploited more. “I understand that there is always going to be wrongdoing, but let’s focus on the positive – things to help out the youth to live in a peaceful zone or else the youth will be destroyed. I have witnessed, as an artist and a dancer in this industry, that is is the one thing that makes the stage fun and a lot of big artists today will agree with that.”

The NamJive team has taken it upon themselves to educate the youth through dance and exposing talent through competitions such as The Dance which took place last year at the Katutura Community Hall. The dance group Maspara Pantsula Group won a stunning N$10 000 prize and Boois said since the competition, NamJive has been receiving a positive response. “A lot of people keep wanting to work with us. One of our mottos is ‘dance your way to success through education’.”

NamJive is also hoping that more people seeking dancers will contact them. “The dance and music industry can work together,” Boois said. “We want people to know that we are here and we want to do this. There are people who make a living off dance and do it because they are passionate about it.”

And sadly, Boois said that a lot of dancers are unemployed and deserve to have opportunities as well. “Dancing is training and exercise. A lot of positive results come from dance.”

And luckily enough, the annual Dance competition is expected to make a comeback. “The culture of dancing is dying, so we want to have freestyle battles every month end and have something the youth can look forward to.”

Dance Sport Namibia’s Venancius Rukero also said their organisation promotes dance as a sport. “You need to start at primary schools. This year, we will be selecting a team and there will be trials. It’s the same as soccer or hockey. There are two faces of dance: The entertainment side of it and then dancing among the youth. Schools are quite interested in it.”

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