Zimbabwean youths turn to dance to end political violence (Feature)

May 6, 2010, 11:31 GMT

By Jan Raath, dpa =

Harare (dpa) - Twenty months ago, the 35 teenagers were either the victims of terrifying political brutality, or the ones who beat them with iron rods on the unlit, rubbish-strewn streets of Harare's Mbare township.

Last week they were on the stage of the Zimbabwean capital's Reps theatre, in one of the unexpected triumphs of the annual Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA).

Transgressions is a deeply moving dance drama that eloquently portrayed the cruelty and cynical control of a party that sucked them and many thousands of others into the violence during the last elections in June 2008.

To Brahms' turbulent 1st symphony, the youngsters executed an hour-long spare, fast-moving contemporary dance, in which they staged robot-like battles, rolled in agony on the floor, dragged their dead and injured off the stage, and finally rejected the brutal autocrat that had created the violence to proclaim the victory of his pacifist opponent.

It had the audience in the packed auditorium on its feet and the faces of the hitherto stoney-faced dancers wreathed in broad smiles at their success.

'It was really great,' said Tongai Masunda, one of the leading dancers. 'We didn't think people would like us very much. We are just from Mbare.'

Octogenarian president Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party unleashed a reign of terror before and after the 2008 presidential elections against the then opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - which is now in a rickety power-sharing arrangement with Zanu-PF.

The violence left around 200 MDC supporters dead and thousands maimed, as mobs of Zanu-PF youths, press-ganged into joining, roamed the streets of townships and rural business centres, hunting suspected supporters of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

MDC supporters tried to resist the ritual lashings and destruction of their homes, but were no match for the Zanu-PF gangs, who were backed by police and the army.

Earlier this year, volunteers of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe gathered 35 youths from both sides of the political divide in Mbare to unite them in training - this time for a peaceful purpose.

Volker Eisenbach, 39, runs an unusual dance company in Berlin that draws on youths and young adults with no experience of dance, to bring dance to ordinary people. The Commission called him to Harare to try his luck with the rough and rowdy youths from Mbare.

'Most of them were involved in the violence in 2008,' he said. 'We had both sides, victims and perpetrators. But it was never an issue at rehearsals. There was never an incident, no-one ever said 'I don't want to dance with you,' or 'he did this or that to me.' They left all that outside. They just wanted to do something.'

He had had two weeks to turn the motley crowd of toughs into dancers. 'It was great from day one,' he said. 'When I entered the room to meet them, they did a little dance routine to welcome me.'

Much of Eisenbach's work in Berlin is with difficult teenagers in the poorer parts of the city.

'You have to work hard to create an environment where they listen to you and stop fighting and offending each other,' he said. 'Not with the Mbare kids. They were open eyes and ears. They said: 'We are ready, teach us something'.'

For five hours each weekday of the fortnight, they rehearsed.

'I didn't look for the best among them, anyone could come,' Eisenbach said. 'They came every day. There was so much power, they needed to dance. They were open to everything, total commitment. Even the worst days were really good.'

The dance 'is about power, losing power, the reluctance to give up power, about people who started out really good and turn to the opposite in the end, and their reluctance to step down,' he said. 'It's about freedom, about suppression, and forcing people to do things they don't want to do.'

He is adamant that he was not creating a statement about Mugabe's 30-year autocratic rule. 'Zimbabwe was not the main thing in my head. I never told the dancers this is about Zimbabwe. It's completely applicable to (Premier Silvio) Berlusconi in Italy.'

But Transgressions touched a raw nerve in the electrified audience, several of whom spoke afterwards of the vivid and troubling depiction of what Zimbabweans have come to accept as normal election behaviour.

Eisenbach also organized a free show for children on a netball court in Mbare.

'They clapped and cheered when the leading dancer portraying the 'king' or the 'president' was taken down and a new leader triumphed,' he said.

In its 11th year, HIFA has established itself as a significant international arts festival, drawing respected local and international artists in classical and contemporary dance, theatre, opera, drama and comedy.

The programme runs to about 30 events each of its six days and runs like clockwork.

This year drew a massive attendance of 61,000 people, many of whom came from abroad specially for the festival.

HIFA is the brainchild of renowned concert pianist Manuel Bagorro, who spends most of the rest of the year scouting for talent in Europe, America, Australia and the East.