Uhadi…

Today we woke up late and were racing to make it to our first performance at the Beethoven Music Theatre. Our tickets were for Uhadi, which is a large group of Eastern Cape musicians that perform the almost extinct ancient Xhosa musical traditions. It is astounding that these musicians came together to rehearse for the first time on June 22, 2007. The group is named after one of the Xhosa instruments, a bow attached to a calabash. A few other handmade instruments included inking (a bow with a string), Umrubhe (bow w/out a calabash), Isitolotolo (harmonica), uMasengwene (a percussion instrument played by rubbing the strings with wet fingers) and the Igube (drum).

The group of about 60 {largely female}, filled the stage dressed in brightly colored large hand embroidered “A” line wrap skirts, and elaborately wrapped scarves in designs that reflected their varied tribal/ clan heritage. The tops were a long single piece of fabric that matched the skirt. Each top had two thin strips of cloth attached at the top, which were tied at the back, leaving the women’s shoulders, arms, back, and sides exposed. There were three young women performing and their tops were attached to waist length black tub tops, leaving only their arms and shoulders bare. {My assumption, based on the age and clear hierarchy with the women, is that the ladies with the black undershirts were unmarried.} Most of the women were covered from head to toe in a light green dust, and those that were not had distinct dot and line designs on their faces. There were two rows of male musicians that lined the back of the stage. They each carried long wooden canes / sticks and were dressed in either red Dashikis with ANC embroidered on the back and black pants or white shirts and white pants.

They performed working songs, prayers, celebration songs, initiation songs and lullabies. The elder women were clearly the leaders of the concert, taking center stage in groups of six or so the women would dance forward and throw themselves both vocally and physically into the moment. There was a dance I call the “challenge” where the woman at the front of the line would suddenly do a side step, pivot and face the woman behind her with a loud guttural sound clearly expressing a challenge. Every time that would happen the Xhosa people in the audience would begin to shout at the stage and the energy of the room would heighten. The female initiation song and dance was my favorite. It began with a fight between two of the young men where they essentially fenced with two sticks, dramatically leaping in the air and diving to the ground, warding off the attack. In elaborately graceful moves, the two men battled while the drums, strings, and voices crescendo. The men split apart and the first line of women step forward to dance, swinging their arms and hips in unison.

I had a rare epiphanal moment watching the Uhadi women perform. These thick voluptuous women lived completely rooted in their bodies. There hips, arms, waists, and breasts were used to communicate the passing of time, birth, death, evolution. You could read the story of life through their bodies. Triumph coursing through their fingertips…. I have spent my life living in language - allowing my thoughts to float between words. My mother claims I walked out of the womb talking. But so much of my life is spent trying to find the words to articulate, more often than not, questions rather than answers. I think I like the fact that sound can not be destroyed, but rather dissipates moving further and further into the atmosphere. It is releasing part of youself into the universe. But what then do I hold onto for me? There is a depth and ease to the way these women move that has nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with centering yourself in the physical world. I felt surrounded and challenged by the freedom to live with out fear or shame, wholly embedded in the vessel I was given to experience this life.

Eve Ensler would call these women “vagina warriors,” women who have experienced pain and devastation but have internalized it to heal themselves and then used the power and awareness that pain created to teach and protect others.

My goal in the coming year is to live more fully in my body, befriending the best and worst of me, appreciating the stories my body is capable of telling. As simple as it sounds I have no doubt that it will be an incredibly difficult journey. Because despite how conscious and confident I may be as a woman, I am a child of the West. And I, like every other woman I know, spend far too much time and energy deconstructing my body. Time and energy wasted fighting myself when I should be investing in the celebration of my own survival.

By the time the last song ended, the Xhosa women in the audience around us were dancing on their feet. Sitting in the audience I felt like I was watching a prayer being answered.

Ashe.