At 10pm the night if fully dark. There is a moon, and a few stars, but the night is dark and wet. The town is lit electrically by tired yellow lights, and so the darkness remains in the light.
In the Ngome Kongwe (Old Fort), the open ground is lit powerfully and aggressively with large stage lights, colourful and white hot. The stage is huge the the chairs sitting in front seem smaller than they are. As do the people sitting on the stairs. The stage it full to bursting of music players and singers, making the stage seem all the more bigger and the chairs bellow all the more smaller.
All glitters - the men in dark suits and slicked back hair. The women sexy, colourful, cosmopolitan, powerful, flashing their dresses, a leg, with thick and theatrical make-up.
Men are crammed into any open space on the stage, violins, oud, cello, keyboard. The stage is vibrant and very much alive tonight.
A woman begins singing, high and sometimes grating on the ear. Her voice fills the spaces between the music's sometimes unfamiliar beat. The rhythm, the sounds, the women on stage and in front swaying, all create an atmosphere of delightful naughty fun.
People get pulled from their seats, and sway their buttocks' tantalisingly from side to side as they walk and sing towards the music. One lady holds a 10 000/= (Tanzanian shilling) note and as she walks past (supposedly) male friends, she increases her sway and flicks the note over and around their seated bodies. And then she is gone to join the crowd.
They all step to the music; step to the right sway, step to the left, sway. Over and over, hands and arms follow freely, hips move just barely or very energetically. Most are waving their 5 and 10 000/= notes for the singer to lean down and pick coyly from the outstretched hands. All the crowd sing along to the song.
It is a woman's space, I am told later, a place for women on the island to dress up, to sing and dance and be sung about. It is true. While the men play the instruments, the women dance. Sometimes a man joins in with the singing and oh my... his beautiful voice fills the fort with such deep longing. And makes the women blush.
The night is dark. The night is colour. The dresses bright, the make-up thick. The sound familiarly unfamiliar. The nature of sound. This is the space of the woman.
Men are crammed into any open space on the stage, violins, oud, cello, keyboard. The stage is vibrant and very much alive tonight.
A woman begins singing, high and sometimes grating on the ear. Her voice fills the spaces between the music's sometimes unfamiliar beat. The rhythm, the sounds, the women on stage and in front swaying, all create an atmosphere of delightful naughty fun.
People get pulled from their seats, and sway their buttocks' tantalisingly from side to side as they walk and sing towards the music. One lady holds a 10 000/= (Tanzanian shilling) note and as she walks past (supposedly) male friends, she increases her sway and flicks the note over and around their seated bodies. And then she is gone to join the crowd.
They all step to the music; step to the right sway, step to the left, sway. Over and over, hands and arms follow freely, hips move just barely or very energetically. Most are waving their 5 and 10 000/= notes for the singer to lean down and pick coyly from the outstretched hands. All the crowd sing along to the song.
It is a woman's space, I am told later, a place for women on the island to dress up, to sing and dance and be sung about. It is true. While the men play the instruments, the women dance. Sometimes a man joins in with the singing and oh my... his beautiful voice fills the fort with such deep longing. And makes the women blush.
The night is dark. The night is colour. The dresses bright, the make-up thick. The sound familiarly unfamiliar. The nature of sound. This is the space of the woman.
sorry for error in the first publication, it has been edited out!
ReplyDelete