Festival of South African Dance

Rhode Island College brings over twenty Johannesburg performers to town for the Festival of South African Dance, which highlights two specific dance styles native to that country. Gumboot dance is a style developed by rural gold miners, who wear plastic rain boots – gumboots – while working. Forbidden from speaking on the job, the miners developed the dance style as a means to communicate. Pantsula, meanwhile, is a considerably more fast-paced style of urban street dance that emerged during Apartheid and vaguely resembles breakdancing, or at least the footwork of breakdancing. Live musicians will accompany both groups. Click here for a fun primer on early pantsula music.