The City of Pearls has adorned itself with colourful spectacles of diverse foreign cultures. European folk dances had enchanted the audience at one end of the city, while miles away, another witnessed the celebration of African culture with a Congolese treat of song and dance, on Friday.
Hyderabad’s foreign students, from different countries in Africa and the West Asia, gathered in Yapral for the first-ever ‘Crazy Friday’ get-together that would have one African country present its native performing arts each month, Congo being the first.
The multiplicity of languages in Congo was illustrated by folk-drum beat songs, linguistically merged with Lingala, Swahili and French. A slow rumba-like dance form called Ndombolo warranted flexible steps from dancers, setting a plethora of competitive performances that gripped the evening’s fervour in popular demand.
A feast for the eyes was not all. Nyama choma, a Kenyan meat delicacy, was being grilled out for the guests to get a taste of the traditional African cuisine.
“Though the dance forms are African folk, it is hard to miss that they have turned modern today. We need proper costumes and choreographers to restore traditionalism. It will take a few more months, but we will get there,” said John Seddah, the event manager from Kenya.
Seddah aims to bring both Indians and Africans to perform together in something he would call ‘The Afro-Indian Love of Culture’.
Didier Ngwangwa, a dancer-member of the Congolese Community in Hyderabad, reflected the eagerness of his community to learn something new from Indian classical dance forms.
