African Healing Dance

African Healing Dance, with lead dancer Wyoma and the dancers and drummers of the Damballa dance troupe, is a step-by-step dance course on healing traditions and spiritual movements that are special to the African dance heritage. An African proverb teaches, "If you can talk, you can sing, and if you can walk, you can dance." Thus African Healing Dance is suited for beginning to advanced dancers, students of dance, instructors, and choreographers studying and/or performing African dance. The instructional video and included manual provide an effective guide for a dance or exercise program at home or in a workshop setting. Director of the Damballa dance troupe as well as head dancer, Wyoma begins with a simple warm-up, including breathing techniques; body articulation movements for the hips, chest, shoulders, and feet; and stretching. She then artistically integrates the teaching of six traditional African dances with the passion and joy of connecting dance movements that have the spirit and energy of nature and the elements (water, wind, fire, and earth) and animals such as the snake, elephant, and bird. A final portion of the 70-minute video is called "The Healing Journey," in which Wyoma encourages personal exploration of inner rhythms and feelings through improvisational movement. As one watches this video, it is difficult not to feel the pulse of the drumbeat and the spiritual strength of Wyoma and her celebration of life through dance. --Christine Aiken