Kids get intro to Rwandan culture
Children pelted onto the stage at Davenport’s Lincoln Academy, Thursday, eager to match their dancing feet to the energetic movements of the Vanginanga Troupe of Rwanda.
Dancer Vincent Nsengiyumva’s face radiated joy as he and Jean-Claude Shumbusho, both performing artists, vigorously pounded mallets against the ingoma, or traditional drums, and leapt between beats. Hundreds of young feet imitated the jumps, causing the auditorium floor to quiver for a few seconds.
“I thought it was awesome. I was scared at first but then I was having fun,” Alexis Naguina, a fifth grade student, said
“It felt like I was doing an African spiritual. Me and my friends were dancing,” Detarius Smith, a third grader, added.
The program began with a warm Lincoln welcome and Nsengiyumva and Shumbusho dancing in long blond wigs and clutching spears. Bells, worn on ankle wraps, jingled with each movement. The program featured traditional instruments of the inanga (guitar), amakondera (cow horn), and umuduli (string instrument).
“Today I bring a message of hope to the people,” says Nsengiyumva, who also teaches African drumming and dance.
The Rwandan troupe, all survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, are sharing their native dance, song and instruments with Quad-City audiences through May 3. Those appearances are part of the Quad-City Arts visiting artist series. Their next stop is Ohio and their travels will take them on to Italy, Canada, Africa and around the world.
Claudine Mukamabano danced out onto stage, carrying a baby doll on her back and a basket and rolled up mat in her hands. She knelt and showed how the five baskets fit inside each other as she cared for the “baby.”
All the women in the country make those peace baskets,” Nsengiyumva said. “Women in my country are the ones who bring everyone together. Now we have peace.”
Tags: baskets, macy, peace, s
Yeah! Fuck them for exercising their freedom to express themselves! How dare they dress in a manner that isn’t socially acceptable!They totally deserve whatever happens to them!
You were one of those guys defending griefing?So, can you point out what in your experience shows how this “dog eat dog” behavior is just a fact of life?
So you’ve never been entertained by a good broom-fucking joke? For shame, sir, for shame.
May I suggest instead that people dress emo, not to be “shunned and shamed by the world” but because they have found a sub-culture which resonates for them, and they are trying to fit into it?In that regard, dressing and being emo does involve a certain desire to state “I’m not mainstream. That culture doesn’t work for me.” But to suggest that distancing oneself from the main culture is to desire being shunned and shamed by it is absurd and profoundly ignorant.
Oh, right. I guess it’s OK to beat the shit out of them.Chicks in miniskirts deserve to be raped too.
Mexico’s elite class: Euro-Spaniards.Mexico’s most impoverished… the unwanted.. the Indians then the mestizos.Mexico’s government IS racist and encourages their unwanted classes to leave for the north.Partially due to fear of internal revolt, the USA is considered a pressure valve to reduce the possibility of Mexico’s masses throwing off their yoke of bondage.Also to keep the billions of dollars “immigrants” send back to their families in Mexico. Those are dollars that Mexico’s elites do not have to distribute to…. keep the “natives” from getting too restless and possibly revolt!!!!!Lots of severe problems in Mexico.America’s elite class props up Mexico’s elites by only partially enforcing the immigration laws. America’s elites are not harmed by millions of illegals but America’s working poor are. Supply/Demand: too much available labor hurts wages. Rents go up. Competition for health care. Many problems with identity theft among illegals. They receive many freebies you and I pay for via taxation and the one whose ID is stolen too-often has fraud committed against them.There are so many illegals present…some estimates as high as 20 million, more or less, that there is a large infrastructure in the USA that assists illegals: false ID, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, etc.Until you have resided in an area with MANY illegals you can not understand the extent of the invasion.Find a true working-poor American, they are out there. Ask them how illegals harm them. I was forced out of California and my lot improved when I entered a mostly illegal-free zone but, within three years, Nebraska experienced a large influx of illegals and I saw the negatives again.Basically, Mexico is practicing a form of apertheid.And, for general info, the vast majority of illegals from all countries head for the cities. Only a small minority head for the fields due to low pay and increasing mechanization.My experience with the invasion goes back to 1971 when I was one of few Gringos to attend a meeting of a cell of the Brown Berets outside Berkeley California. Not the phony wannabes’ seen at some college campuses and barrios today…. these were the hard-core cadre and they still exist but stay low… promoting the Aztlan thing.Of course, the mass media will not inform the general public of the facts.
You put it perfectly. I see fellow redditors are happy to quote Protestant theologians when they happen to be correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came
Aren’t there enough problems that need to be addressed in Rwanda?
another use of ‘Legos’ as the plural of Lego, which of course should be Lego. No ’s’.Yet again, the rest of the world looks on and shakes it’s head in shame as the United States flings it’s own shit around.
Oh, I thought it was emo-witches being hunted.
Anonymous should read what you’ve written.