Inalegolo cultural troupe to perform at Music Expo tonight

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Thursday December 2, 2010 00:00

 

They were also the highlights of this year's annual Bushmen music and dance festival, the Kuru Festival. Tonight (Thursday), Gaborone revellers who missed the chance to see this amazing group of rural dancers performing their antics, have a chance to marvel at their creativity. Tsutsube dance is all about acting out social life routines in an entertaining dance fashion and the Kalahari Desert based dancers, with first hand experience of Bushmen social life, have become the new reference point when it comes to this unique traditional dance.

When it is performed the audience is brought closer to both the joys and pains of life deep in the desert. They show you their types of housing, the cheap huts made from grass.

The Bushmen's common diet, the wild melon, is often used in their theatrical performances. When they last performed at the heritage month, Inalegolo performed a dance in which they shared the joy of honey gathering.

Food hunting and gathering drama would also be followed by celebratory dance routines. Sometimes the Tsutsube dance is presented to show the trials in the desert as the Bushmen attempt to connect with the gods to heal a sick kinsman.  The organisers of the BIFM-sponsored traditional music expo, say they will also have super groups, Culture Spears, Dikakapa, Matsetse, as well as folk musician Stampore and his band on the programme. Kalanga group, Chilecheche Ngwao, which wowed the crowd at the recent Domboshaba Festival, has also been invited to add colour to this week's traditional music expo.

The organisers say the expo will also be a feast of traditional Tswana cuisine and beer, as well as traditional poetry.