From Newtown, Johannesburg. Today was an amazing visit into Newtown. Newtown is the cultural center of Johannesburg. Here, we visited a dance company called Moving Into Dance.

Moving Into Dance was started in 1978 by Sylvia Glasser. This non-racial dance company brought black and white South Africans together to dance. Moving into Dance helped bring people together to end apartheid.

Apartheid is a very important topic. We will learn more about it in a few days.

We were able to watch the dance company’s rehearsal. The style of dance that we saw is called Afro-fusion. It is a mix of traditional African dances with other dance styles from around the world.

First, we watched the “Stone Cast Ritual”. This dance began with a slow rhythm. The dancers had a rock in each hand. They would hit their rocks together with beat of the music. Then the dancers would strike the rocks against the other dancers’ stones. This represented that we are all connected.

Then, we were treated to another dance. This one used many different styles of dance, but the most exciting was the gumboots dancing. It was loud, foot-stomping music that made me want to jump up and dance too!

After watching the dancers, I was ready to shake my groove thing!

Next: a funky African beat.

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