East African Dance in Weymouth

From the collection of

Established in 1992, the South West Film & Television Archive collection spans from 1893 to the present day containing more than 250,000 items. Formed from a variety of depositors, including broadcast news and programmes material from the Westward and TSW archive. In 2018 the archive collection transferred to The Box in Plymouth.

East African Dance in Weymouth

The Box
Weymouth
1976-03-30
Sound
8m

Basil, an East African performer educates school children in traditional dance

An East African performer, Basil, visits a local school in Weymouth to teach the children about his culture and traditions. African dance is related to personal history of ethnicity, region and language. Each dance is a way of teaching social values to the community. The dancer's voice and a drum beat accompany the dancing and individual expression follows.

Dance in most African countries is seen as an expression of community and draws on the experiences of life. A collective rhythm encourages audience participation. Dances of Love, Rites of Passage and Coming of Age are performed and a young person is encoraged to express themselves building confidence. Modern African dance with its polyrhythms has a global appeal and marries traditional dances with contemporary moves.

Black Lives

Portraits of public and private lives against the shifting social climate of 20th century Britain.

Black communities, like many Global majority groups, have long been ill-served by a mainstream British media accustomed to reflecting predominantly white, middle-class lives - a problem entrenched in the second half of the 20th century with the rise of television. Yet a rich tapestry of work from across the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, film and TV, made for (though not always by) black people, does exist. This selection contains many surprises – some joyous, some sobering, some heartbreaking – and highlights the often painfully slow progress in addressing negative representations and stereotypes on screen. Impassioned and sometimes violent dispatches from the front line in the fight for racial equality can be found here, but so too can records of progress: in the pioneers breaking new ground in culture, politics and sport, and in the more mundane glimpses of everyday life. And this story is not just London’s story: the selection takes a journey around Britain, to a Nigerian wedding in 1960s Cornwall, an ‘African village’ in Essex and a Caribbean restaurant opening in West Bromwich; Newcastle