African Arts Festival celebrates cultural traditions

The legacy of dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham lives on at the African Arts Festival, a three-day event that celebrates traditional African music, dance and crafts.Organiser Kunama Mtendaji was a student of Dunham’s, and he has booked a variety of artistes who reflect Dunham’s passion for dancing, drumming and the Diaspora.“They are inseparable in drumming cultures, the drums and the dance,” Mtendaji says. “She brought in teachers from all over the African world to teach drums.”The main stage features American Jazz from Le Jazz Hot! and the Bosman Twins, Reggae from Dubtronix and Nonstop Reggae, Hip-hop from Pinx Academy of Dance, Haitian music from Ayati Rara and Banyan Dance Theatre, Egyptian dance from Tribe Ayaka, and West African dance and drumming from Spirit of Angela, Harambee, Narda Shirley & the Nation, Afriky Lolo and others. Each day opens with a drum call.This year’s event also coincides with the one-year anniversary of the death of jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron.

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African Arts Festival celebrates cultural traditions