Fri 24 November – Butare
This morning we drove three hours to Butare, Southern Rwanda, following a very opportunist cyclist who hitched a ride on a truck for miles and miles.
We also experienced a wonderful variety of weather conditions: sun, rain, and an intense fog (limiting visibility to 5 meters). Here’s a bit of the rain!
We survived and arrived at the Ethnographic Museum, where we recorded two groups. The first was the Urugangaze Ballet, a group of 55 performers in total (we saw 21 today). They are all made up of locals of different ages, the furthest being from Nyanza. The group was started in 1991 by Tomas Bazatsinda, and since then has only grown, performing at weddings and ceremonies around Rwanda and even touring France, Libya, Egypt and Germany over the last ten years. While the engineers set up, Daisy and Kathy interviewed the leaders:
Their leader, Bertin, took us through the songs they performed for us today. The translated titles are his explanation (Google Translate told a very different and more confusing story that we ignored after our fixer Jado laughed and shook his head at Google’s work). Please link on the songs to watch the wonderful performances:
- Umuhororo (“Presentation”) – a mixed gender presentation dance to welcome us, backed by drums and vocals
- Benimana (“The Goddess”) – a song with just female dancers about how they worship their gods, backed by drums and vocals
- Ibihangange (“An Ode to Strength and Beauty”) – a song with just female dancers that honoured the beauty of women and the power of men (drums and vocals)
- Gira Amararo (“Have Shelter”) – a song with just female dancers about home and belonging (drums and vocals)
- Mpundu (“Mothers Giving Birth”) – a song with just male dancers that was an ode to mothers giving birth (drums and vocals)
- Intwatwa (Intwatwa Dance) – as we saw with the Inganzo Ngari group two days ago, Intwatwa is a popular traditional dance that pays homage to the Intwatwa people (formerly known as the Batwa). All regions have their own variation on this dance. Today’s was smooth, expressive and with the performers (all men) giving it 100% with face as well as body movements.
- Intore (“Warrior Dance”) – another traditional dance that we saw with the Inganzo Ngari group, this warrior dance had plenty of fun solos as the warriors showed off their skills to one another, chatting in between so it had the feel of a scene, not just a dance. As with the other Intore we saw, there was a group accompanying the dance on the amakondera (horns). A couple of facts we learned about the Intore today: firstly, the Intore name is derived from the verb “gutora” (to choose/select) as a large number of the trainees originally were recruited from the children of upper middle class families. Secondly, the lion manes that the dancers wear are made of wood that is beaten so fine it becomes hair-like.
Some photos of the female dances…
Some photos of the male dancers…
