The women dance with several pots piled vertically atop their heads. And that is just the basic description; there is more. Hands out, waist in, neck held high, this is a dance of pride!
It is a showcase of skill and then some more pride. The long yet elegant strides, waist jiggle here and there… it is quite something, this dance. The Acholi pot dance is one to watch if you are a cultural adventurer.
I got a chance to attend the cultural dance showåcase at National Theatre recently, where I met Samson Okeny, a dance trainer who said there are areas where they have made deliberate changes and simple additions to attract the audience to the dance.
The dancers start with the tease, as if a reminder of the beautiful Ugandan people based in the North.
“The carrying of pots in the Larakaraka dance and telling of stories around the dances was my addition to make the dances attractive, but I endeavor to perform the first part authentically and then make the additions later,” he said.
Quickly yet gently, at the start of the pot dance the ladies will withdraw to the back as the men make way and fade off into just providing the sound for this showcase.
Soon the elegant damsels each return with a pot in hand. They dance, boast even, as if to say, “…look, I can dance and carry a pot at the same time.”
But they dance in formation, occasionally breaking away to explore the different corners of the stage. They break into twos or threes and tease the audience, glancing at their pots and smiling, then gyrating their hips a little bit before walking around some more. I was captivated.
At this point, first-time watchers like me were wondering what the pot was for. The dancers slowly bring the pots to the center, against their bellies, then shake their waists. They know the tease is working, so they smile. Then slowly, smiles getting brighter by the second, the pots are uniformly placed on each girl’s head.
The men have all faded into the background at this point and the women, looking like gazelles, begin to flaunt their glowing skin, agile bodies and long legs. Even as the pots balance the head, the dancers find a balance and a way to still wiggle their waists without dropping their pots.
In fact, the skilled dancer is one who managed to even make subtle jumps, keeping the pot in place without touching it.
Then they ran off the stage, back to where more pots awaited. They returned with two pots each and this time moving even faster to the Acholi beat, these queens kept going, testing and pushing themselves further.
One pot soon became two, three, four, five and more, all piled atop each other. At this point, the sound of the men’s calabashes had been replaced with a more melodic instrument, sometimes the adungu from West Nile.
Also called the African guitar, the adungu provided for a more relaxed and elegant atmosphere, sometimes spiced up with a flute. On stage, the girls walked, swayed to the tune of this music, with their pots.
The more skilled the girl, the more pots she carried and the more vigorously she danced. She would dance to the men, urging them to place another pot on the already long crown on her head. At one point, their helpers had to step on a table to add a pot. How many more can they take?
“When I feel it is about to fall, I reduce the speed and then pretend like I am spreading my hands out,” Clara Achen, a folk dancer with the Gulu-based Dhako dance group said. “Then I breathe slowly, trying not to move my head until the pot stable.”
Clara said it takes time to master this skill, and for the naturally talented, it could take just a month to become very good.
“But other people, especially the ones who have never carried anything on their heads can take even years. So they dance with one or two while others carry even 10.”
Arts pundits argue that the pot dance originated from Teso, but is also popular among the Langi.
But Okeny said among the Acholi the pot dance is a courtship dance. As the girls dance, the men would look for the one who could carry the most pots on her head.
I left National Theatre that day all the richer for having witnessed that spectacle.
inarticle} inarticle}
