Out of Africa Finding and Celebrating my Roots April 2006

by Mischwa
Photos by Russell Byrne

I was born in Sacramento, one of five children. My first public dance performance was The Charleston, which I did while in kindergarten in Del Paso Heights, near Sacramento. I had seen the dance on a show called “The Roaring Twenties” and nagged my mom into buying me the record. Even at that young age I had a good memory for movement. I practiced that dance until I had it down perfectly and then performed it at the PTA Talent Show. Mom had bought me a cute little outfit and there I was onstage in front of a full room of parents and children, doing a solo performance of the Charleston like I was a showgirl in a 20s revue.

When I was in third grade we started to have record days. I brought in my folks’ records and played things like meringue, rumbas and cha-chas, and I began teaching my classmates how to dance. One smart-alecky kid said, “All you want to do is shake your butt.” The comment didn’t bother me a bit. “Do you want to learn this dance?” I asked him. I frankly didn’t care about his opinion, I just kept on dancing.

When I was in the fifth grade my family moved to Sloughhouse, California, which is located right on the spot where blizzards stopped the Donner Party. A marker commemorating the event sits outside the Sloughhouse Bar & Post Office. I got my early education in the Sloughhouse four-room schoolhouse. The sign at the Sloughhouse city limits said pop. 150, but there might have actually been twice that many residents if you counted the immigrants working on the local ranches. Before long I was raising sheep for a 4H project.

Preliminary Steps in a Journey of Dance
There were no dance lessons available for the children of Sloughhouse. My parents, however, had taken an Arthur Murray Dance course. When they got back from clubbing, my aunts and uncles would come over. My folks would put on some music and start dancing. I would be out there with them, figuring out dance steps by following along with the adults.

When I was 15 I entered high school in Elk Grove. That was where my serious dancing began under the influence of a marvelous woman named Rae Holms. She was an innovative dance instructor who introduced us to all kinds of dance, from musicals to modern, including the styles of Martha Graham and Ruth St. Dennis. Ms. Holms even introduced me to Afro-Haitian dancing harking back to the Kathryn Dunham Afro-Haitian and Afro-Cuban style, which was famous in the late 1920s and 1930s out of Chicago. Kathryn Dunham had earned her fame for dances that were performed under Gershwin in black and white musicals, such as “Stormy Weather.”

While still in high school I formed a dance company with three other girls. We booked for hire with sororities, fraternities, and various adult clubs, such as Parents Without Partners. We performed in cute little costumes that included tights and feathers. Our dancing during those days was very Martha Graham-like, but from time-to-time I would throw in some Afro-Haitian. We were too young to exercise good judgment about clothes. We were hot!

We were a fairly successful dance ensemble even though we really didn’t know what we were doing. We weren’t afraid to try anything. I was the director and we were driven by my belief that we could do anything we put our minds to. We designed and practiced choreography in my living room, and then called clubs and told them about our dance group. “You should hire us for your events,” we said. And, remarkably, they would!

Getting in Touch with my Roots
I began making regular trips to Oakland and San Francisco to take lessons from gifted traditional teachers who were conducting dance classes at that time. Those early dances came as an awakening for me. Elk Grove was an all-white school, but that dancing brought me into contact with people who looked like me. Their ancestors had come to America as slaves, bringing with them nothing but their history, which they portrayed in their dance. The subject would sometimes come up In class about students’ heritage. I didn’t know mine, but through those dances I began to learn about myself and about the legacy that my culture had left for me to discover.

I began learning the Dunham Bar technique, which is ballet bar dancing done to African mateo rhythms that were beat out on congas and bongos. Dunham dancing involves a glorious mixture of styles. The dancing incorporated distinct Afro-Haitian and Afro-Cuban sub-styles. We were learning dance movements to the traditional Italian and French ballet vocabulary, but dancing barefoot to drums. As a result, our dancing was more staccato and less fluid than the pure European ballet forms. Dunham Bar dancing was superior to European ballet in that it was inclusive. People other than white folks could do it. Nobody who danced in the Dunham style ever cared about the color of anybody’s skin. Nobody ever said “Your butt is too big!” Or “Your feet are too large!”

We were performing dances that had been brought to America from the West Indies by Africans who had performed them in the woods. The people were nominal Catholic or Baptist during the day but they would be dancing in the woods in the evenings and weekends. At some points in their sad history those dancers could be punished or even hung if caught during one of their performances. But even though they were outlawed, many of the common people apparently continued to do them. We learned dances like Shangos, which were used in ancient times by Cubans in the worship of West African deities such as the spirits of thunder. We learned Benbeys, which are spiritual/ceremonial dances in celebration of such things as marriage. Each cultural group would have their own traditional dances. I was learning Afro-Cuban and Afro-Haitian dances.

I was also doing a lot of modern dance as a member of a group called Celebration Arts so I was able to go through college dancing and performing publicly, plus doing solo gigs.

After graduation, I took lessons in Congolese and Senegalese traditional dance. I also continued my dance education by studying and performing at the West Indies School of Dance. I conducted a literature review at the Afro-Caribbean Institute in Jamaica, which specializes in Jamaican dances, death rites, and celebrations.

Dancing for People
I studied Swahili in college and after graduation I formed a dance company called Kucheza Ngoma, which is Swahili for “Drum Movement.” We perform throughout Northern California at art galleries and at various public events. We stage “on fire” exciting West African and Carnival style dances for weddings, schools, parties, and other public events.

I learned from dancers who were with national Senegalese companies. They were authentic and taught me the actual dance styles. People at my performances see a dance that originated somewhere on the African continent centuries ago. The patterns, movements, and rhythms of each dance are precise, just as if written on a musical score.

So now I’m an American with an African body and soul. My dancing is so authentic that Africans who watch my performances often try to talk to me afterwards in their dialect. They suppose from my dancing that I had been born in Africa. Our dances are nuanced and precise. My students dance the movements with beautiful authenticity. People from Senegal, for example, see us dance Mandiani style, and if they are Wolof or Mandinka they will say, “That’s exactly the way we dance!”

We perform many kinds of dances. Some are influenced by European dance styles. We often perform the Lamba, for example, at weddings. The dance incorporates a loping motion that has been incorporated from French minuets. The smooth movements of the dance, therefore, becomes quite different from the ethnic original. The dance is accompanied by a cora, which is a turn-of-the-century instrument consisting of a gourd laced with 4-5 metal strings and played while standing up, and a kalimba, which is a thumb piano sounding like a harpsichord.

These are evolutionary additions, but we are fully aware of them and often do dances of the more pure variety, especially for specific occasions. For example, we were hired to perform for several African groups at Cal State University at Sacramento, for their recognition of Nigerian associations that was held on the Nigerian Independence Day. This was a very formal event. Women were wearing outfits costing more than one thousand dollars. We did our traditional dances to the accompaniment of drums and native instruments, but then afterwards we did modern/western dancing.

At Cal State University at Sacramento last summer our group performed at an occasion when the Peace and Resolution Conflict Association was bestowing peace awards on people who had gone to Rwanda to assist in the peace and recovery efforts being undertaken in that country. After we finished, one of their chiefs kept asking me, “Where are you really from?” He couldn’t believe I wasn’t West African.

Two years ago our small ensemble was invited for the Inauguration of Cruz M. Bustamante as the Lt. Governor of California. I have done several solo shows per year at Stone Galleries over the past ten years. I have performed for Dance Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, and for Capezios.

For a year I performed modern interpretive dance for Maya Angelo, who wrote the popular I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was taking a black poetry class and Maya came as a Poetry Fellow and I got to dance to her poetry readings at public events. She would do the readings with a drummer, while I performed my interpretive dance. I performed for the Hercules Cultural Festival and danced special performances in Sausalito and Rio Vista. We do three gratis or low cost performances per year. For example, we recently performed at a fund raiser which cost $10,000 per table raising funds for mental health services for children.

Bringing People Together
I once hosted a cultural conference for immigrant people from three different counties. We were teaching business skills for artists – teaching them about things like marketing themselves. We tried to add a European cultural group but quickly learned we had to break it down into sub-groups. People from the Baltic States have a cultur completely distinct from people in Southern Europe. It became a large conference. We learned that people need a place to meet in order to keep their culture and history intact. It was attended by people ranging from recent to fourth generation immigrants for anyone wishing to preserve cultural roots for their children and grandchildren. Immigrants need to learn how the system works in America. They need access to resources on multiple levels of government so that their personal culture won’t end up simply in a history book. We had a committee with 35 people, and were partially sponsored by California Arts Council in partnership with the local San Luis Obispo Arts Council.

Teaching Others the Art of Dance
I taught West Africa Dance through the Local Arts Program at the University of California at San Luis Obispo and have made special presentations in classrooms all the way from grammar schools to universities. I conducted conferences on African dance. Our company is ethnically mixed. I’m teaching classes at In Shape City and teaching Masters Classes.

America is still doing the black-and-white thing. My last name is Murphy-McAddams and people on the phone think I’m white. They are surprised when they meet me. Unfortunately, my color still makes a difference to some people. Things are getting better, but the dance world is harsh. I auditioned for a part in a dance revue called “Hello Hollywood Hello” and they told me to my face that Vegas prefers women impersonators to brown skinned girls. Things are beginning to change. The younger hip hop culture is becoming color blind and breaking the color barriers that kept us brown baby boomers relegated to the back of some parts of society.

I don’t worry myself with other people’s dysfunctions. I simply give myself to my love of dance and movement. While dancing I experience an almost mystical or magical transport into a world without worries or stress. Directing is a little different, but I also can lose myself in imagining new staging, songs, and dances. I’m always delighted by opportunities to share this joy with others.

I count myself very fortunate to have been able to dance my way through life and have worked with a lot of wonderful people by my side as we make our way through this world by the grace of God and the spirit of life that we express in movement.

Anyone who can walk can dance and enjoy the ‘ridims’ as they say in Jamaica. I teach dance that will make you happy – the dances and movements of the birds and people of the Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, and the Congo. Whatever our individual colors and shapes, we can all move together in the joyful rhythms of dance.

My kind of dance is good medicine for both the body and for the spirit. I love to teach and look forward to my classes at fitness centers, churches, wherever.... And if I weighed what I did a decade ago, I would teach you to jump to the sky!

It’s all good man!