Gumboots Stomp in Sync

The words “bafana, bafana” emanate from a practice room in the basement of Annenberg Hall on a Monday night this spring. Inside the room, a line of Harvard students wearing what look like rubber rainboots stomp their feet, twisting, jumping and slapping at their cumbersome footwear. One student voices commands in a foreign tongue: encouraging words in varied tones and volumes. The group responds.

Such performative exchanges—not to mention the boots—are a good indication of what makes the group distinctive. But the Harvard College Gumboots Dance Troupe is about more than performance alone. From South Africa, Gumboots is a tradition said to have originated with gold miners during the Apartheid. The dance acted as a means of expression among workers suppressed and forced to endure brutal conditions. Some were not allowed to move, kept away from their families, and shackled to their work. Rubber boots—“gumboots”—formed part of their uniform.

Decades distant, and half a world away, Harvard’s Gumboots Dance Troupe aims to pay tribute to this particular period of struggle in South Africa’s history. Many former members of the group joined because of an affinity to the cultures of southern Africa, but the group has since maintained its creed while diversifying its participation, now attracting members from many different backgrounds.

A MISSION

Shazrene S. Mohamed ’04, originally from Zimbabwe, says she joined Gumboots her freshman year as a means of meeting other African students.

Mohamed says that before coming to America, she did not know anything outside Zimbabwe. Gumboots was an opportunity to feel close to her home culture.

“It was the people there,” she says. “In a lot of ways I was like the miners looking for comfort and company and something familiar.”

When the group started struggling, Mohamed says she helped resuscitate Gumboots, taking over its teaching and choreography, in addition to helping with costumes.

She recounts collecting bottle tops from the pubs around Cambridge, using a nail and hammer to make shakers for the group’s boots. She said that the bottle tops and shakers were supposed to represent the chains of the miners.

Even though Gumboots was a part of the Harvard African Student Association when she joined, and included many African students, Mohamed says the group also represented an opportunity to expose non-African friends to African culture. She said that the West mostly perceives Africa as plagued with problems: AIDS, disease, and poverty.

Now studying astrophysics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Mohamed still sees it as her mission to share some of her heritage.

Rangarirai M. Mlambo ’07, who is also originally from Zimbabwe and was a part of Gumboots throughout his undergraduate years, takes a similar persepctive.

“One can take away as much or as little as one likes to form an adopted identity,” he said. “It is worth understanding the dance in context. It is a valid world historical phenomenon.”

A UNIQUE SEQUENCE

The composition of the group itself suggests that the history and struggle behind Gumboots can be understood by anyone—African or not.

Lisa C. Rosenfeld ’09, the current Gumboots president, is not African, and cannot claim as close of a connection with the continent as Mohamed, but her choreography maintains ties with traditions, while fusing in contemporary elements.

“Occasionally we’ll create a new routine but in the most part we have a set tradition,” Rosenfeld says. “We break them up, rework them. Like a puzzle we keep putting them together, but the building blocks are fixed.”

Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. Rosenfeld recalls a trip to South Africa in her freshman year. On the airplane, she began speaking with a flight attendant who was familiar with gumboots. He did not believe that she, too, practiced the dance, but after performing a routine at the back of the plane, she picked up a new dance from him and the group used it in their next performance.

“Little things like that is how we progress,” Rosenfeld says.

Even as the group expands and diversifies itself, the dance remains true to its South African origins. Words in Zulu are repeated with every sequence.

Naseemah Y. Mohamed ’12, Shazrene Mohamed’s sister, calls the language behind the dance extremely repetitive. “Even if it is very simple and basic,” she says, “there are a lot of ornaments that, combined with ululation and shouting, creates a dynamic.”

Naseemah considers joining Gumboots a way to reconnect with her Zimbabwean roots and learn choreographically. For her, Gumboots is more than dance.

“A lot of the rhythms are very southern African but because I understand the language, it relates to my culture—the rhythm of it all and the connection between the audience and the performer,” Naseemah says.

“It is very organic and low stress,” said W. Hugo Van Vuuren ’07, who was born and raised in South Africa. “It connects people across years and countries.”

Van Vuuren credits the Harvard Gumboots group for enabling him to discover more about his own country’s culture and history. “South Africans—in spite of our tumultuous history—are one of the warmest people. Our culture is very easygoing and accommodating to other people, and you really see that in Gumboots,” Hugo said. “Whenever a new American student showed up, it was about helping them get on board as soon as possible.”

STOMPING OUT A MESSAGE

Sometimes the simplest way to get people on board is through performance.

On a Sunday night at Sanders Theatre, the diverse group takes the stage to perform for “Africa Night,” the largest collaboration between Harvard’s various schools to celebrate African music, fashion, story telling, and dance.

Stomps and shouts are heard off stage. “Enyaweni shaya enyaweni shayaaa,” one Gumboots dancer shouts.

Chioma M. Achebe ’10, producer of “Africa Night” and president of the Harvard African Students Association, says, “Gumboots was one of the dance groups we wanted because it is something a lot of people are not familiar with.”

“Bafana, bafana.” The dancers halt, stand, and salute. “Saluti!” they ululate, as a tribute to those that inspired their dance, honoring a story about perseverance and triumph, about reaching out and looking homewards, about celebrating an African rhythm.

—Staff writer Margherita Pignatelli can be reached at mpignat@fas.harvard.edu.