Zimbabwean Dance
Chinyakare Ensemble
Chinyakare Ensemble
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Zimbabwean Dance
Chinyakare Ensemble |
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| Chinyakare is a company of eleven musicians and dancers who perform the incredibly beautiful and varied spectrum of Zimbabwean traditional music and dance. At the center of Chinyakare performances is Shona dancer, singer and instrumentalist Julia Tsitsi Chigamba, the company's Artistic Director. A bundle of energy, Julia can leap like a lion, play the floor with her feet like a drum, or call the ancestors with her voice: her roots are planted deep in the Shona tradition she was raised in. The Chinyakare Ensemble - hailing from Zimbabwe, England, California and Oregon - boasts ten highly accomplished musicians and dancers who have immersed themselves in Shona arts both here and in Zimbabwe and mastered them to such a high degree that Zimbabwean artists consider them brothers and sisters. | |||||||||
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| A Chinyakare performance begins with a welcoming ceremony: six metal-keyed mbira, gourd rattles, drums and voices weave a polyrhythmic texture of music while dancers do rapid rhythmic steps with pots of water balanced on their heads. This is mbira dance and as it proceeds - welcoming the audience, performers and ancestors - all present know that this is not just a performance but a cultural event in which the audience is involved. From the harvest dances with thundering drums and feet with leg rattles accentuating the dancers steps, to the haunting whistle of the chipendani mouthbow, to the joyous sounds of the marimba ensemble played with lockstep precision the ensemble celebrates the beauty, power and ingenuity of Zimbabwean culture. | |||||||||
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