UMOJA RULES!!!
Arts and indeed Entertainment just got better thanks to AFRICA UMOJA!!!
Viva UMOJA! UMOJA LUV U
That’s right, yours truly was at the UMOJA show last Saturday and boy what a performance there was that night?! Hhm! I just couldn’t help moving my little tired body in my seat throughout the near 2hr show. And trust me all the stress I had endured that fateful Saturday was long erased from my body by the time the show started. How was the show in one word? – ENERTABULOUS – yea that’s a new word, energetic and fabulous combined.
Dig this… how many of you (ladies reading this) can go topless in public? Yeah, I mean walk about in public with no bra and no shirt or T-shirt on…completely naked at the top revealing your breasts in their entirety. Hmmm you said? Ha! Well that was no difficult task for the Umoja cast. The first scene was gripping in the literal sense of the word and was enough to make everyone shut up in the National Theatre auditorium and allow the flashes of digital or non-digital still cameras do the talking.
The show took the audience through a musical journey of South Africa. It talked about the history of the people and how music has impacted their lives. Thus the show started with a brief narration which eventaully run throughout the show. Now the point of interest in the very scene for most guys who watched the show… particualarly my fellow blogger and college Osabutey(check out his blog at www.osabuteyanny.blogspot.com) was the topless girls in the first scene. Hey I ain’t trying to be no angel here but the firm breasts of the ladies surely caught my attention as did the other guys in the auditorium. I’m sure had it been some GH folks going topless people would have complained but hey these were ‘exotic breasts’ so no one complained but rather we all zipped our lips, readjusted our seats and feted our eyes.
Naked breasts and flawless sensual wriggling and swaying of the waist was more or less the agenda for the day if you like. But for me, there was more to it. The zeal and energy displayed by the performers was what captivated me the most. If you are into the performing arts as I am, you would realize that every good stage actor tries had to cut down on change over time and this was marvelously executed by the Umoja performers. By change over time, I am referring to the amount of time spent by the actors to change over from one costume into another.
Here was a cast of 32 who were almost all on stage at any given point in time. They took on different characters per each appearance and yet the show was structure in such a way that whoever is playing a lead character in any scene either gets to finish his act slightly ahead of the rest and dashes backstage to change costume or is the last to leave the stage and appears as another character in the next scene which he joins fairly early or about half way.
For me, the dexterity of the drummers took me to another world. I guess I can say I’m a sucker for drums so hey whenever big, huge drums are being worked to produce magical sounds, I am drawn away. After all, like the narrator in the production said, the drum beats are the heart beats of Africa, Africans and I dare say moi. Like the Daily Telegraph of England said in its review of their performance, “They dance like demons, sing like angels and drum like magicians possessed”. Indeed I was also possessed by the powerful thumping of the drums and I could feels it pulsating through my veins.
AFRICA UMOJA – The Spirit of Togetherness is certainly a must-watch production and I’m sorry if you missed out on the show but please make it a point to watch it the next time you hear it’s in town…will you?
PS: I will post some more pictures from the UMOJA show later because the internet connection is deteriorating presently hence I have been only been able to post one pix. Watch this space for more pictures soon.
