Are there any African dance junkies on this tribe? or do they "segregate" onto the more specific tribes? Well, if you're looking for dancing, live music, and singing all in one place, and you want a total work-out, and to feel like you're part of a "community," a group of people moving across the floor together, doing traditional movements together to live drumming, then check it out! It's a great natural high for me. If you've never done it, it can appear daunting, all those body parts moving in different directions at the same time, but you gotta just leave your ego at the door and jump right in. Most major cities around the country these days have some kind of African dance being offered, often by Africans who are teaching their native dances.

Imagine growing up in a culture where dance and music and song were part of everyday life. It's a fairly recent phenomenon for Africans to have performers and performances, where some people dance and some people watch, as opposed to just everyone dancing as part of life. When I went to a performance in a theater in West Africa, sometimes people from the audience would just jump up and dance in the aisles, while the performers were dancing too!

What would Americans be like if we all grew up dancing and singing? Probably real different and a lot more fun and relaxed. I didn't "get serious" about dance until I was maybe 20 years old, and now I divide my life up -- BD and AD. I wish I'd started sooner!

keep on dancin' --

christina