Yesterday afternoon Adam and I went to see Winnie perform in African Stroies with her choir. I generally doin’t go to choir performances, having gone to a few when I was younger and finding them boring but this one was more interactive and entertaining.
Snapping, slapping on the knees and clapping from the choir creating an realistic sounding thunderstorm introduction to their performance. Anecdotes of the choir’s travels to Africa were sprinkled throughout. Many songs weren’t in english. Some had clicks (I can’t remember the name of the language, maybe Winnie or Dave can help me out here) in the lyrics which I’m sure were a little more tricky to sing.
I found some of the song translations quite funny. Some songs were only one sentence long (“In 1940, I rode my bike.”) but all of them sounded fabulous. They had a gumboot dance number that was really infectious and guest performers Afro Shine were very skilled, bringing in some reggae. The ending number left the audience in a happy light mood I think. It was a fun number and I almost wanted to get up and dance along with the choir as they filed out of the auditorium.
It was worth the $18.00 per person and I would recommend people to go next year.
Bertha