Cultural sensation
in an ‘African footprint’

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

T he formula is as familiar as a Baryshnikov pirouette or an Astaire soft-shoe: short ethnic dance number steals the show during a widely televised variety program and becomes an overnight international sensation, touring the globe to sold-out audiences.
Certainly, all the world knows that story as the seemingly improbable and largely unexpected rise of Riverdance from TV intermission act to one of the most popular feature-length musical theater shows in history.
Now, some folks from South Africa with the help of a Canadian promoter are hoping to follow the trail blazed by the Irish phenomenon. What’s more, they say, African Footprint affords African-Americans an opportunity to retrace the steps of their ancestors during a time in which the nation is celebrating Black History Month.
African Footprint will visit Philadelphia for the first time from Feb. 29 through March 2 at the Academy of Music as part of the Kimmel Center’s Cadillac Broadway Series.
The show highlights South African history through dance and music with segments featuring tribal routines as well as genres developed by native people during periods of colonialism and apartheid. The chronology continues into the present day, when a reborn South Africa is looking ahead to hosting the 2010 World Cup of soccer.
"It’s a real panorama of South Africa," said Corey Ross, the Toronto-based producer of the North American African Footprint tour. "You have every element of South Africa onstage — white, black and in-between."
Like many positive developments in that nation over the last two decades, the emergence of the show can be attributed at least in part to Nelson Mandela.
In 1998, following the dissolution of apartheid and Mandela’s election as president of South Africa, British performer and producer Richard Loring founded a school there for disadvantaged children interested in studying the theater arts.
The following year, CNN invited Loring and his students to perform during the network’s millennial festivities broadcast from a prison cell once occupied by Mandela on Robben Island.
Millions of viewers worldwide saw the program, which launched the troupe’s touring company, much like an appearance on the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest broadcast had brought Riverdance into millions of homes across the globe.
African Footprint toured the next seven years in South Africa and two and a half years in Europe, along with numerous engagements in Australia, China, Israel and India, before embarking on a North American tour in November.
According to Ross, it features four distinct segments reflecting different eras in South Africa’s history.
"It starts with traditional Zulu numbers including the ‘stick dance,’ which they performed in the prison show for Nelson Mandela," Ross said.
A second segment draws upon the 1950s and a place called Sophiatown. A township outside of the capital city Johannesburg, it became a cultural and political center for the black population of the time, much like Harlem in New York City, although both blacks and whites lived there.
"It was a unique area because of the culture that developed, and it was an area where a lot of mixed families lived," Ross said. "Eventually, the apartheid government bulldozed Sophiatown and separated the families."
The segment features "amazing tap numbers using these garbage cans," the promoter said.
The show’s homage to the South African mining industry is a scene in which cast members perform a "gumboot" dance.
Originally, miners stomped their boots as a method of communication while underground, Ross said. Eventually, the stomping developed into a form of folk dance.
At the conclusion of the show, the dance becomes contemporary and innovative with performers doing "pantsula," a style reminiscent of hip-hop. They use soccer balls as props and a soccer stadium backdrop to foreshadow their nation’s big 2010 coming-out party.
More than 300 performers have taken part in the show since its inception. All have been South Africans and most have studied under Loring, fulfilling the creator’s original vision.
"(Loring) wanted to do something to contribute to healing (the nation), and he wanted to go into the townships and conduct auditions," Ross said.
"The idea was to take raw talent and give them musical-theater training where they could become ‘triple threats’ — dancing, singing and acting."
Upon bringing African Footprint to North America, Ross and his organization fully expected to capture the interest of African-American audiences. But during their travels over the last three months, they’ve seen that the show, much like Riverdance before it, possesses a much broader cultural appeal. ••
Visit www.africanfootprint.com for video of the show. Visit www.kimmelcenter.org or call 215-893-1999 for tickets.
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com