South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost sovereign state in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline of southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere.

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.

African dance

African dance refers mainly to the dance of Sub-Saharan Africa, and more appropriately African dances because of the many cultural differences in musical and movement styles. These dances must be viewed in close connection with Sub-Saharan African music traditions and Bantu cultivation of rhythm. African dance utilizes the concept of polyrhythm as well as total body articulation.

Dances teach social patterns and values and help people work, mature, praise or criticize members of the community while celebrating festivals and funerals, competing, reciting history, proverbs and poetry; and to encounter gods. African dances are largely participatory, with spectators being part of the performance. With the exception of some spiritual, religious or initiation dances, there are traditionally no barriers between dancers and onlookers. Even ritual dances often have a time when spectators participate.

Characteristics

There are no singular definitions of African dance: Africa, a continent three times the size of the United States, is ethnically and culturally the most diverse on the planet. Though similar themes may be found throughout dances across the many countries and landscapes, each has its own history, language, song, background, and purpose and cannot be translated to another dance of the same culture much less another dance from somewhere else on the continent.

South

South is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. It is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. South is the polar opposite of north and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word south comes from Old English sūþ, from earlier Proto-Germanic *sunþaz ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word sun derived from.

Navigation

By convention, the bottom side of a map is south, although reversed maps exist that defy this convention. To go south using a compass for navigation, set a bearing or azimuth of 180°. Alternatively, in the Northern Hemisphere outside the tropics, the Sun will be roughly in the south at midday.

South Pole

True south is the direction towards the southern end of the axis about which the earth rotates, called the South Pole. The South Pole is located in Antarctica. Magnetic south is the direction towards the south magnetic pole, some distance away from the south geographic pole.

Roald Amundsen, from Norway, was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911, after Ernest Shackleton from the UK was forced to turn back some distance short.

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are those groups protected in international or national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, their cultural and historical distinctiveness from other populations. The legislation is based on the conclusion that certain indigenous people are vulnerable to exploitation, marginalization and oppression by nation states formed from colonising populations or by politically dominant, different ethnic groups.

A special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. The United Nations has issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to guide member-state national policies to collective rights of indigenous people—such as culture, identity, language, and access to employment, health, education, and natural resources. Estimates put the total population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million.

Dance move

Dance moves or dance steps (more complex dance moves are called dance patterns, dance figures, dance movements, or dance variations) are usually isolated, defined, and organized so that beginning dancers can learn and use them independently of each other. However, more complex movements are influenced by musicality and lyrical relevance to express emotions or refer to a message. Dance moves tend to emphasize the concepts of lead and follow and connection. In most cases, dance moves by themselves are independent of musicality, which is the appropriateness of a move to the music (for a notable exception, see Bharatanatyam). Generally, they are memorized in sets of eight counts. Also there are two different movements: concrete and abstract. These two movements show time, space, relationship, quality and focus. For example, relationship could describe the movement of two or more different dancers. The names of moves may be somewhat arbitrary and vary from person to person and city to city. For example, in Lindy Hop, circles are also called "rhythm circles" and "reverses".