gumboot

What is Gumboot Dance?

If you are not aware of this dance form, then you may wonder what is this all about. So, to know about this subject, you need to read this piece of writing. After that you will get the required information. This dance form, as you can see in the video available in the internet, may seem ton you like a celebration of life. People dancing the gumboot dance may seem like dancing with a jest for life. Today, the dance may seem so, but the root of this dance will tell you a completely different story. There were more requirements, than to show people the jest for life behind the initiation of the dance.

This dance form has been derived for a really brutal problem of apartheid in the mines of South Africa. Before freedom of this country, the native peoples were forced to work in the flooded gold mines. They were also forced to wear wellington boots or wellies. Moreover, they were chained together, so that none of them can run away from this brutality. The gold mines were flooded with water, but instead of clearing the water, the owners of the mines used to make the workers wear these gumboots, because that option seemed to be less expensive and more viable to them.

As the workers were chained together and they were barred from communicating with each other, then invented a unique way of communicating with each other. They used to tap the boots and shake the chain. This is the root of this dance form. After many years, this form has changed completely and today it has become the symbol of the jest for life. If you have the idea that, this dance is all about the jest and celebration of life, then you were wrong. The root and the basic structure are all about brutality and exploitation of people in their own land.