THE TEAM BEHIND IKIRINGO, a project that aims at protecting and promoting local dances in Rwanda, is considering extending the initiative to different African countries. Ikiringo is a Kinyarwanda term loosely translated as ‘deep or authentic happiness from social cohesion’ and, in the context of dance, the word is referred to authentic dance that resonates with the cultural tradition. The project is under BeneDico, a company that deals with intellectual property and promotes authentic local dances like Ikinimba, Ikinyemera and Gusaama in Rwanda through creating digital content and working with local artists in different parts of Rwanda. To archive different types of traditional dances, the team has over the months been travelling to different parts of the country from which certain dances take root, and started to video document dances from the communities of the identified areas dancing local dances depending on their respective inherited dancing traditions. Benoit Ngabonziza, the brains behind the project told The New Times that they working with different stakeholders to ensure that their project reaches different countries with which they share the same cultural ambitions. “Because we deal with authenticity, we’ve been going to visit communities from which the dances take root, to take videos of the communities performing their dances,” Ngabonziza said. Ikinimba originates from performances by communities, mainly farmers from both Burera and Gicumbi, Ikinyemera which are mostly performed by shepherd from Gishwati forest in Nyabihu District as well as Igishakamba from communities in Nyagatare. “These are dances that we are afraid are disappearing but, through archiving them we hope that they won’t get lost from our cultural heritage,” he explained. “We produced documentaries explaining the origin of the dances, how and why are performed in a way or another and, with these kinds of content and the cultural nights and cultural festivals that we plan to organise when the pandemic relaxes, we hope to keep our local dances alive,” he said. To extend their initiative beyond Rwanda, BeneDico a fortnight ago signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kingdom of Eswatini that will see them extend their cultural initiatives. Eswatini is considered as the culture hub for the Southern African Development Community (SADEC) but is still struggling with its cultural conservation. Ngabonziza said, through Ikiringo, they are looking to help the country and the SADEC region to document their cultural treasures digitally. “The challenge that we have in conserving our local dances is the same challenge that we share with those from the Sub-Saharan region but we hope we can address it at large through our Ikiringo project which serves to keep these dances alive through documentation as we bid to cover the whole sub-Sahara region,” he said. “We started with Eswatini because we started with countries that we think have managed to preserve culture, a country ruled under the kingdom came to our mind first. We were lucky that our project got approval from the royal family and we hope to start operating and implementing it in Eswatini,” he said. A cultural festival will be organised next year, combining dances, video documentaries related to cultures in different countries that will also participate, foods and other culture-related creations. With Tanzania set to be their next stop, the project intends to document the culture of the whole sub-Sahara region in the future.
