By: Tshepiso Chaba and Dimakatso Mofokeng

Dance, our OXYGEN In South Africa, the most popular form of art in the youth is Dance. It is our oxygen, there is never anything that includes the youth without dance. We are even taught about the general things through it. As the youth we express ourselves in many ways, so because of that we do different types of dances. Here are some of them Gumboot- originated in the mines of South Africa and has been done for many years. When dancing you should wear rubber boots and overolls. Pantsula-when this dance originated it was done by boys and as time went by girls were then allowed to do it. The thing is many girls don’t enjoy it, so in a group of 20 you will only find 2-3 girls. You need a lot of energy and flexibility to be able to do it. “Mapantsula”(people who do the dance)wear 3 quarter Dickis pants, baggy T- Shirts tucked in, Converse sneakers and Alaska hats called “Spoty”. Sbhujwa- It needs a lot of energy. You cannot do this dance with any type of music, you either use Kwaito or House music. People who do this dance are called “ Mabujwa” and they wear skinny pants and tight tops. Indlamu- It is a Zulu traditional dance and mostly done in Kwa-Zulu Natal, one of the provinces in South Africa. One of the things that they is “Ibheshu”, made out of animal skin. Hip hop- This is an international dance. Both girls an boys do it and they wear baggy clothes when doing it.

Different types of dance Gumboot PantsulaSbhujwa Hip Hop Indlamu

The use of Art to integrate into the society Dance helps the youth to be part of the society. Many young people join dance groups in order to fit in and be seen as part of the society.

Piercing amongst young people Amongst the youth piercing is one of the most popular forms of art. Different dance pierce in different features of the body.

The accessibility of art in South Africa Art is very accessible in our South African communities. The most interesting thing is that in different communities, there’s a specific form of art that differs from the other communities. But there are some things that are common in all the communities like music.

Morabaraba Morabaraba is a game created by the Sotho people. It is not officially art, but in South Africa we consider it as art.