Monsters and Celebrations - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, May, 2002 by Amanda Smith

National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts Brooklyn, New York February 2, 2002

In a thoughtfully conceived and theatrically savvy program, the National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique warmed Brooklyn on a cold night. On the first stop of their American tour, the nineteen dancers and five musicians (under the artistic direction of Julio Armando Matlombe) performed two colorful works by the company's general director, David Abilio Mondlane. The first was a lengthy, absorbing narrative; the second, a suite of traditional songs and dances.

N'Tsay seemed initially mythic in its storytelling but quickly became social commentary. The God Queen N'Tsay (Perola Jaime, the evening's featured performer) stood proud in gold and white, her people dancing joyously about her. But when what the program called "a monster and evil spirit" appeared, things changed. The monster is a white man, Nhangume, who destroys their happiness by introducing alcohol, violence, and domination. Portrayed by Ussene Ali on stilts, in a white mask and wearing a long white coat and hat, Nhangume is a larger-than-life monster, and the dance became a comment on the corrupting influences of colonialism, a Garden of Eden tale in which the serpent is the white man. Eventually he was brought down, literally, from his perch on the stilts, the goddess restored at stage center, the story told in dancing that ranged from tableaux to inebriated falling about to high-energy kicks and polyrhythms.

In Mozambique the Sun Has Risen Up provided a lively kaleidoscope of seven diverse dances and musical selections from various parts of that country. The cheerful Tufu/Nssope, for women in white tops, yellow and black skirts, and turbans, used shoulder twitches, knee walks, and individual styles of jump rope. In Xigubo, men with shields and spears moved vigorously in unison. The nine couples in Niquetxe formed semicircles and crisscrossing lines. the men wearing shells on their ankles, but there were moments in Semba that looked almost like contemporary break dancing. A musical interlude, Xigogoro, by Eduardo Durao, featured the traditional xylophone, the timbila, played by the musicians at the stage's left. N'Ganda referred to the men who fought alongside the British against what is now Tanzania, and the piece suggested military formations and crisp uniforms. The dance's lengthy finale, Makwaya, again displayed the high-kicking dancing that characterized happiness and celebration in N'Tsay. Concluding an aerobic and noticeably exhausting evening for the dancers, In Mozambique intentionally leaves the impression of being a living tourist brochure for a country where one would enjoy spending time.

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