Traditional Instruments and Zulu Dancing

Professor Andrew Tracey
plays the uhadi bow.

Joe plays the horn!

Some weeks ago we all took a trip to the Grahamstown area.  We stopped at Rhodes University to tour the International Library of African Instruments.  While there, we were treated to a lecture from Professor Andrew Tracey whose father Hugh Tracey founded the collection in the 1950's.  

We were able to see - and hear played - many of the instruments we had only seen in film during South African Music class.  This picture shows Andrew Tracey with an original uhadi bow, a one-string instrument with a calabash gourd to add resonation.  

Multi-string Bows

We spent too much of the rest of the day in the bus! - seeing some of the local, more rural area around Grahamstown.  We did stop in a village called Hamburg where we had a traditional Xhosa meal of chicken, samp and beans, pumpkin, and bread.  Bradley Levack, again our guide, had brought enough drums for each of us to play.  We had some instruction in drumming, but what really got our adrenalin flowing was the instruction in Zulu dancing.  

Two Zulu dancers:
Our instructor and Margaret Free

Our instructor, in native dress

Intricate bell

Drummers Trang, Margaret, Issak, and Jim

You can see the drum heads are made
from animal skins.  Some not quite skun!

Zulu dancers..
..ask to see the video!

Margaret Free, Margaret Peyton, and Shaz Ahmed are born dancers.  For the rest of us, it came a bit harder.  

But, here is a picture from when Jim and I are both in the front line.  (Jim says to tell you that he was gooood!  You should ask him to see the video, and judge for yourselves.)