Heddapris winner dancer and choreographer, Tendai Makurumbandi, draws on the living physical, spiritual, and cultural archives of African peoples to question colonization and modernization on identity formation. Inspired by the Himba tradition of receiving a unique “birth song”, MY SONG explores the evolving continuities and relational identities of marginalized communities. Through call-and-response—a practice embodying “being different together”—the performance resists the colonial legacy of modernity that enforces dominance. Transcending conventional perceptions, it revives overlooked elements that shape identity, moving from the unknown into a spirit realised as a song sung into existence.
Premiered at the CODA Oslo International Dance Festival in October 2023, MY SONG invites audiences to reimagine identity as a living, inclusive act of self and community.
Context
Among all African tribes still existing today, the Himba of Namibia is one of the few that counts a child’s birth date not from the day they are born or conceived, but from the day the child is first thought of in the spirit of the mother.
When a Himba woman decides to have a child, she goes off alone to sit under a tree, where she listens until she hears the song of the child who wishes to be born. After she hears this song, she teaches it to the man who will be the child’s father. When they make love to physically conceive the child, they sing the song as an invitation to the child.
Once she is pregnant, the woman teaches the child’s song to the midwives and elder women of the village, so that when the child is born, they can welcome the child with their song. As the child grows, other villagers learn this song and sing it in various contexts related to the child. If the child falls or is hurt, someone will pick them up and sing their song. When the child achieves something special or goes through rites of puberty, the villagers sing the song as a way of honoring them.
If a Himba man or woman commits a crime or breaks a social norm, the community gathers and calls the person to the center of the village. The villagers form a circle around them and sing their birth song. The Himba see correction not as punishment, but as an act of love and a reminder of identity. When one recognizes their own song, there is no desire or need to do harm to another.
In marriage, the couple’s songs are sung together. And finally, when a Himba man or woman is on their deathbed, all the villagers who know their song come to sing it one last time, his/her SONG
