This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

6th September 2008

View online here

I first saw Africa Umoja – the Spirit of Togetherness back in 2002 when, as one of thousands of home-sick ‘Saffers’ living in London, I relished the taste of a production that seemed to be so quintessentially South African. Umoja offers audiences a whistle-stop tour from the days of the kraal (animal skins, beadwork and all) to the rhythms of kwaito, taking in a range of iconic sights and sounds along the way. There is the sangoma, the Venda snake dance and Zulu stick-fighting; there is the music that grew from early encounters between black migrant workers and the ‘white’ metropolis; there is jive, jazz, marabi, gumboot dancing, mbaqanga, gospel, the marimba and ikwassa kwassa. The scenes unfold in locales with resonant names – the Durban YMCA, Sophiatown, the mines, Soweto and the ubiquitous shebeen.

All of which is guaranteed to make the temporary exile that many South Africans abroad impose on themselves more bearable, and to send a tingle of patriotic pride down the spine. Being away from the country of your birth tends, of course, to make it easier to essentialise: bad news is exaggerated, so that crime levels are worse, the political situation is more fragile and the economic prospects are bleaker; but nostalgia ensures that, in your mind, the grass is literally greener, the sky is a deeper blue, the soil is richer, the people are friendlier, the animals are wilder and cultural traditions are more distinct. The feel-good rhythms and tourist-brochure version of South Africa proffered by Umoja gratifies such perceptions.

Living in twenty-first century South Africa, on the other hand, you realise that it’s not quite so simple. Things are seldom either as bad or as good as they seem. And that complex entity we call ‘culture’ is more difficult to define – or rather, the borders between our cultures become increasingly uncertain as, for better and worse, they each become inflected by other, globalised and globalising, popular cultures. So I wasn’t quite sure what I would make of Umoja when watching it for the second time, in an altogether different context.

When we arrived at the Victory Theatre on Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg, the foyer was packed with schoolkids – a sight to dampen the spirits of many a ‘serious’ theatre-goer. Fortunately, however, Umoja is loud, bright and fast-paced (in other words, enjoyment of the show is not diminished by short adolescent attention spans, incessant talking or mindless screeching in lieu of applause). Moreover, the average age of our fellow audience members posed another question: how would these well-dressed, mostly black, urban and – in their youthful way – urbane avatars of post-apartheid ‘modernity’ respond to Umoja’s anthropological portrayal of black South African experience as expressed in song and dance?

After all, the show’s narrator (Penuel “Hope” Ndaba in the performance I attended) explicitly establishes a line of continuity from tribal drums to contemporary township rhythms. Musically, that may be a valid case. But aren’t young black South Africans – in fact, South Africans of all races and ages – increasingly resisting the assumption that ‘black’, ‘African’, ‘tribal’, and ‘traditional’ are interchangeable adjectives, and that a ‘rural’ heritage remains at the heart of the culture(s) associated with these adjectives?     

As post-colonial writers, critics and cultural practitioners have pointed out, such assumptions are typical of ‘Western’ attitudes towards Africa (and many ‘Eastern’ attitudes too). From this perspective, a show like Umoja can be seen to fulfil the expectations of overseas audiences who, whether they admit it or not, still perceive South Africa and Africa more broadly in terms of ‘primitivism’ or ‘noble savagery’. What else could explain the ambiguous compliment of a British reviewer, proudly splashed all over Umoja’s publicity material: “They dance like demons, sing like angels and drum like magicians possessed”?

The problem with this theory, however, is that in addition to international success – apart from the UK, it has toured to some 20 countries – Umoja has also proved extremely popular in South Africa. And the reason is: it’s a great show. The all-singing, all-dancing cast comprises extremely talented individuals and together they produce a polished, well-choreographed, rousing spectacle. Only very occasionally do the energy levels falter, hinting at the sheer number of times the show has been performed (just as Ndaba’s narration can seem a little over-rehearsed).

On the whole, their enthusiasm – reflecting, no doubt, the vision of creators Todd Twala and Thembi Nyandeni – is infectious. One might criticise the gloss Umoja gives to apartheid realities; or the show’s anachronistic and unconvincing gesture towards the AIDS pandemic; or the poorly-worded and error-ridden souvenir programme; or the ways in which Umoja reinforces certain stereotypes that precursors such as Ipi Ntombi, Meropa or uMabatha (in which Twala and Nyandeni were involved) encouraged amongst British and other overseas audiences.

Nevertheless, the music and dancing trump these complaints. Umoja is well worth seeing, and its success should be celebrated.

* Umoja is at the Victory Theatre until October 18th.