Welly boot dance
Encyclopedia
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
that is performed by dancers wearing Wellington boot
Wellington boot
The Wellington boot, also known as rubber-boots, wellies, wellingtons, topboots, billy-boots, gumboots, gummies, barnboots, wellieboots, muckboots, sheepboots, shitkickers, or rainboots are a type of boot based upon leather Hessian boots...
s. In South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
these are more commonly called gumboots.
The boots may be embellished with bells, so that they ring as the dancers stamp on the ground. This sound would be a code or a different calling to say something to another person a short distance away. It was basically used as a language in the mining grounds.
Origin
Gumboot dancing was conceived by black miners in South Africa as an alternative to drumming—which authorities restricted. The boots were a solution to a problem of often flooded gold mines in which men otherwise stood in knee-deep water toiling at their work stations.Description
Gumboot dancers are commonly sighted on the streets and plazas of tourist areas in South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, such as the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront
The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in the historic heart of Cape Town's working harbour is South Africa's most-visited destination, having the highest rate of foreign tourists of any attraction in the country...
in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. It is still used today by some miners.
The dance likely originated among South African gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
miners, and especially in their tough working conditions—including poor lighting and dampness. Many of the steps and routines are parodies of the officers and guards who controlled the mines and workers' barracks. Like other forms of African dance, Gumboot utilizes the concepts of polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
and total body articulation, drawing from the cultural dances of the African workers that manned the mines. It is a percussive
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
dance made by idiophones or autophones (objects of the everyday life vibrating by themselves), and is similar in execution and style to forms of "Stepping"
Stepping (African-American)
Stepping or step-dancing is a form of percussive dance in which the participant's entire body is used as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps...
done by African-American fraternities and sororities.
Appearances outside of core context
The dance is the highlight of the performance of Black Umfolosi, a prominent ZimbabweZimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
an folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
group.
The album Graceland
Graceland (album)
Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...
by the American pop singer Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
has a song titled "Gumboots", which is performed in the style of South African township jive
Township Jive
Township Jive can refer to* A subgenre of South African Township music and dance* A track on Paul Simon's Graceland album...
(mbaqanga
Mbaqanga
Mbaqanga is a style of South African music with rural Zulu roots that continues to influence musicians worldwide today. The style originated in the early 1960s.-History:...
) and contains performances by members of the Boyoyo Boys.
The British-American composer David Bruce
David Bruce (composer)
David Bruce is a British-American composer.Bruce began his undergraduate studies in music in 1988 at Nottingham University , before moving on to the Royal College of Music where he obtained a Masters Degree in Composition, studying with Tim Salter and George Benjamin; and a PhD in Composition at...
has written a clarinet quintet
Clarinet quintet
A clarinet quintet is a chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, plus the standard string quartet of two violins, one viola, and one cello. The term is also used to refer to a piece written for this ensemble....
entitled "Gumboots", which was inspired by Gumboot dancing. It was commissioned by Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in 2008 and can be heard in full on their website,Carnegiehall.org performed by Todd Palmer and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
Since 1990s and 2000s, Drakensberg Boys' Choir School
Drakensberg Boys' Choir School
Drakensberg Boys Choir School is a school near the small town of Winterton, in the heart of the Drakensberg mountain range in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa....
based at gumboot dancing the folk-African part of their repertoire and white gumboots are the part of the second variant of their concert costume (the first variant is a classical "white man's" costume).
External links
- Lesole's Dance Project - South African Gumboots (example of dancers with bells on their gumboots)
- Otoplasma.com