Meeting Mr Majeza
On the 21st of January 2020 I got a call from one of Zimbabwe’s traditional Dance custodian Sekuru Majeza to meet and discuss. I met him close to the national railways station Harare and he told me of how he had heard stories about me and wanted us to work together.
We made arrangements to meet on the 15th of February as I was traveling to the UK the following day.
We agreed to work together at Music According to Percussion, for his group in Glen Norah and that he would frequent my drum and dance class at Afrikera. I was so happy about that as I would start working with the master and was geared to learn from him and also explore his and my our culture together.
When I came back I reunited with Mr Majeza and started working on MAP’s dance routines and enhancing them. I would board a combi to Glen Norah and work from the community center with vaMajeza.
I remember speaking about Ngororombe, and types of Muchongoyo from his home land Chipinge but one of my highlights of our first rehearsal was him explaining where the name Mbakumba was derived.
He explained that Mbakumba was a name given at the Zimbabwe National Dance Company and its proper name is Shangara yevaKaranga.
The dance that we normally term Shangara is Shangara of the Zezeru from Domboshava, in Goromonzi District.
Shangara of the Zezuru
It’s a drumless tap dance accompanied by just clapping and voices and serious tap dancing. It was then mixed with mbira and gondiya drum patterns during the Zimbabwe National Dance Company era (late 1970s to 80s) because the leaders thought mbira dance was repetitive and that the Domboshava Shangara lacked instrumentation hence the association of Shangara and Mbira. The other difference between the Shangara which was commercialized and ancient Domboshava Shangara is that the steps of 2 or 3 dancers would be seldom identical meaning the structure was like Zimbabwean polyrhythms construction in which we have anovamba, then anodaira then different kutsinhira and the end result is this huge polyrhythmical chunk of steps clapping and voices.
Mbakumba
The name Mbakumba was given because of the drum pattern which is a 12/8 pattern played on two ngoma with different tones.. Though In some of the Hugh and Andrew Tracey’s Karanga recordings before Independence the name Mbakumba was mentioned ( in a documentary about Simon Mashoko).
The first Zimbabwean Dance Company was a great initiative, they helped preserve a handful of folk dances and music styles and wanted to create a performance and standardize the dances to be taught in schools but some of its flaws were alterations and distortion and also embracing the Church culture of suppression of Dances of Mashave and others that were termed demonic leading to 80% of the dances being lost or endangered…..
Mbakumba is one dance style styles that has stood the taste test of time and even to date, we still have dancers practising and performing it both local locally and abroad.
Here is a link to a tutorial by one of Zimbabwe’s prominent female Dancer Ndomupeishe Chipendo.
https://youtu.be/p-84m_Fv1gQ
Also follow these links for more Mbakumba Dance videos
https://youtu.be/6Fht84EzTLU
https://youtu.be/WPEiORK8KJs
Ngoma Music and Dance 