12.11.2007 18:39
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12.11.2007 18:39
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12 November 2007 - Scatterlings Club <website@scatterlingsclub.com> http://www.scatterlingsclub.com/
In 1981, I wrote a song for Juluka called “Heart of the Dancer”. The song looked at how the dance could be used to say things that spoken language can not say. I began dancing traditional Zulu dancing in 1968.
Over the past 30 years, I have mastered three different styles and the dance has been a very important part of my life. War dancing enables young men to engage each other in dramatic and theatrical demonstration of skill and masculinity. The human body can be coded to carry messages which are both conscious and unconscious and different cultures code their bodies differently in terms of body comportment and how space is used to convey one’s presence. Because Zulu warrior values emphasize that the individual should try and stand out from the group, the use of space and the asserting of ones presence is a key in establishing status and prestige amongst young men.
Dancing is a form of story telling, using time (rhythm) and space (movement). Because war dancing is a kind of play theatre, real fighting seldom breaks out between warriors in competitive contests. However, if the symbolism being used with hand gestures and aggressive body posture is extreme, real fights can break out. The roll of the dance leader is to make sure that insulting gestures and behavior are kept within an acceptable parameter.
For me as a young boy of fourteen, it was one of the most wonderful ways to explore my masculinity. It was a great confidence builder and although for a year or so, I was often laughed at and struggled to internalize the proper warrior body comportment, my fellow dancers were very generous and very supportive and made sure that even if my movement was not exactly correct, the idea and the sentiment that the movement meant, was instilled in me. War dancing opened the way to learn stick fighting and by the time I was seventeen, I was stick fighting with young migrant workers on the weekends.
In the aesthetics of Zulu war dancing, one has to kick high and stamp the ground as hard as one can. This signifies the delivery of a blow to the enemy. However, this must be done in a way that emphasizes an original placing of kicks and stamps against the rhythm of the clappers and the drummers. The dance requires immense stamina, at the same time, an ability to create new patterns of kicking and stamping, whilst competing against an opponent.
Traditional Zulu culture stresses a warrior philosophy which recognizes that the world and life offers one nothing and that everything needs to be struggled for and in that struggle, a life story unfolds. This life story is encapsulated in a man’s or woman’s “izibongo” or praise names. In other words, no matter how hard the going gets, one has to keep telling ones story. This is a key element in the dance, not to give up, to keep fighting, to keep creating and re-inventing one’s self.
In order to give Scatterlings Club members an insider’s view into the dance, the Club requested that I do a personalized documentary on the dance, which I have done and is now in the final stage of being edited. This will be made available as part of the catalogue over the December period. Enjoy !!
Johnny Clegg
November 2007
Author: Johnny Clegg
12 October 2007 - Scatterlings Club <website@scatterlingsclub.com> http://www.scatterlingsclub.com/
In 1967 I met a Zulu Street Guitarist, Charlie Mzila and in this chance
meeting a fantastic cultural journey opened up for me, which is still shaping my
life. The details of the meeting can be found on the www.johnnyclegg.com
website. This was at the height of cultural segregation during the apartheid
years. I bought myself a handbook and begin to teach myself the Zulu language
and I wrote Zulu lower grade as a seventh subject for my matric exams. I had to
apply for permission to do this from the Department of Education. I wrote the
exam in the Head Masters office under his watchful eye. Because my grades were
so poor, the aggregate result of passing Zulu enabled me to scrape into
University. It was a very exotic world for me coming out of the Zulu migrant
hostels and having created my own broad network of friends amongst the zulu
migrant workers.
In my first year I took Politics I, Zulu I, English I and Social Anthropology I.
I failed my first year and I had never failed before, so I returned with gusto
to try and show myself I could do it. By the end of my degree in anthropology I
received a first class pass and went on to complete an honours degree . In 1979,
I began teaching Anthropology at the University of Natal, Durban for one year
and then for three years at the University of the Witwatersrand up till 1982.
As a temporary – assistant – junior - lecturer, I was given all the crappy
teaching jobs. One of them was to do a six week course on race and racism to
three hundred “Caucasian” first year students. This course was designed to
address all the hidden and at times not so hidden, racial prejudices and ideas
that these young eighteen year old boys and girls had been exposed to through
apartheid state education, the church, civil institutions and the family. During
the 60’s in South Africa the apartheid government desperately searched to find
pseudo scientific arguments to justify the biological separation of racial
categories they had constructed. Their argument suggested that Homo-sapiens as a
species had split at least three times into biological sub-species ; the Mongol
race (Peking man), the Caucasion race (Neanderthal man) and Austraulopithicus
Africanus (the Negroid race). This they argued showed that there was some
biological and scientific support for the separation of the races.
In our department we argued vigorously against this propaganda, showing in fact
that the oldest known human fossils were African and that Homo-sapiens was a
single species and had not diversified into unrelated species. It took another
twenty years for population genetics to unequivocally and scientifically
establish this fact.
The idea that Africa is the cradle of mankind and that a small band of early
humans embarked on a tremendous journey and scattered throughout the world
became the theme of my first International hit “Scatterlings of Africa”. In my
country South Africa, at the time, this was a strong political statement arguing
against the separation of races, that we were one species and that our birth
place was Africa. Seventy thousand years ago, our ancestors left Africa and
there are now six billion of their children on the planet. It has been one of
the most successful colonisations of the planet by any mammal. It may also lead
to the planets downfall.
I have always wanted to be connected to a broader community of like minded
seekers - Scatterlings in their own right. But then what is a “scatterling”? In
my head (WHICH IS QUITE DANGEROUS) I kind of see a scatterling as someone who
wants to know where they come from and where they are going to and the meaning
of their journey; they may be physical or spiritual wanderers, nomads, seekers.
They are insiders who are outsiders, and outsiders who are insiders. They are
successful but feel on the margins of society. They feel marginal because they
know there must be more to life. They know that they are not simply what they
do, they are more than the photo in their passport, or their social security
number. They know that language is a means to learn another language. For me the
Scatterlings Club is a community who are curious about their environment. They
feel in-between many worlds and are trying to get a handle on their own journey.
In short, they :
1. value their journey
2. value the earth
3. value life
4. value other scatterlings
5. value the search for meaning.
This is not a Johnny Clegg fan Club site, but a platform for members to expand
on these ideas and develop exciting and new ways to look at our collective
journey. The site is interactive because it needs members to make suggestions
and help to shape it going forward. A lot of the cultural items that I have
initially chosen to make available to members, are items which I attach great
significance to as they helped to transform my understanding of myself. Whether
this was through stick fighting, beer drinking, Zulu war dancing and
participating in many, many traditional rituals and ceremonies among the Zulu. I
have chosen these items as they are little milestones in my journey.
I hope together we can enjoy this great Puzzle..
Johnny Clegg
October 2007
Author: Johnny Clegg
http://www.scatterlingsclub.com/
Approximately 70,000 years ago, a small fragile group of humans in Africa embarked on a fantastic voyage. They left their mother continent and began a migration to every corner of the planet. As far as we know, they had no map, no compass, and no plan - just perhaps, a deep inner conviction that their journey was possible. They were the first Scatterlings of Africa – our great grand ancestors.Members will recieve: