AfroBeat, Empower Women, Enslave Men.

Tonight I attended an African Dance lesson hosted by Yeni Kuti , the first child and daughter of late Afro beat king, Fela Kuti.  What an experience!  I was apprehensive at first, as my dance skills are not exactly honed and my sense of rhythm a little off beat.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when the afrobeats started pumping and our fifty one year old teacher and her amazing assistant started dancing.  

What followed was rather unusual.  It seems that to master Afro Beat Dance you must be able to move your hips in the correct way.  You have to move your pelvis back and forth without moving the rest of your body too much e.g. legs, chest, shoulders and also popping your butt backwards more than forwards.  This acts like a sort of catapult for your bum and makes it 'jiggle'!  Ha.  We had to master this before moving on.  Clearly the more junk in your trunk, the easier it was to make the moves.

We were all given chairs and we had to straddle them (yes you read correctly), we practised like that for a while.  I was suitably prudish and embarrased in my typically Scottish style but soon got over my giggles and had a go.  I was crap at that so I had to get on all fours to get the movement right before moving on!  You can imagine what it looked like and the laughs I got.  By the end of the lesson I still hadn't got the move but I had made some new friends and laughed more than I have for a while.  

Yeni's philosophy on Afro Beat dance was the most interesting part of the night.  She stopped us all while we were practising our gyrations to tell us that this type of dance was all about empowering women and encouraging our sensuality.  She went on to tell us that if we could master this 'movement' our men would never stray and they would be 'enslaved' forever.  Well, I'm not too sure I'm in full agreement but hey, who am I to judge.

I will most certainly attend next week and we have all been invited to 'The Shrine' with Yeni in a few weeks to celebrate her brothers birthday and to see the real dancers do their thang.  Maybe I'll be able to channel some of the rhythm and master the moves.