Marymount Prekinder - KUMBAYA

Topic: Movement - Liturgical Dance
The holy dances of Alma White, mentioned in the post for 4 November 2011, differed from the carefully choreographed performances staged by Clariece Paulk, mentioned in the post for 14 October 2018. The movements were those of untrained adults doing what they thought dancers did: woman turned and men leapt.

Those were the natural actions of children in our society. The only thing that’s changed since 1904 is television has replaced vaudeville and minstrel shows. Children still imitate what they see and find exciting.

Four-year-old girls in the Marymount pre-kindergarten in Barranquilla, Colombia, came on stage in 2014 to shake their hips by raising one knee at a time like hula-dancers. They turned to the left and rolled their hands around each other as the stepped from foot to foot.

The boys began, before the girls entered, by banging on floor drums. After the girls had gone through their routine once, they stood behind them and did some of the same motions. When the girls left the stage, they supported themselves with their left arms on the floor and kicked one leg at a time in the air.

The choreography mixed popular with classical forms. The use of rolling hands was reminiscent of Tina Turner’s backup singers in videos of "Proud Mary". [1] Several of the boys tried steps borrowed from rock-videos rather than the prescribed moves. One did the hands-on-knees part of the Charleston, while another looked more like Elvis Presley when he tried the same pattern.

The costumes were taken from ballet stereotypes of Russians and Ukrainians with girls’ skirts over tutus and boys’ shirts with band collars opened in the center with top-down slits. The boys’ floor combination was a simplification of a Cossack squat dance, [2] sometimes imitated by break dancers.

In this child’s world where music, dance, and costume could be mixed without concern for internal logic, the choreography was set in Africa. Behind the row of floor drums was a screen showing animated cartoons of elephants, giraffes, and women carrying jugs on their heads.

The performance began with a boy in Cossack dress and hat singing or lip-synching a verse from "Kumbaya" with a hand-held microphone or prop.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: young boy
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: electric instruments
Rhythm Accompaniment: floor drums

Credits
None given

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: kumbaya
Term for Deity: Lord
Basic Form: one-verse song

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: medley, with the first part a recording of one verse of "Kumbaya." The second part was drums. The third part was music by electric instruments and a voice that couldn’t be heard distinctly.

Notes on Performance
Occasion: Christmas show, 2014

Location: stage with large Christmas trees at each side and in the center; slides or a cartoon-style animation of Africa was projected unto the back wall.

Microphones: one held as prop.

Clothing: costumes were either brown prints with chartreuse details or black-and-white prints with orange decoration. The boys were dressed in Russian costumes with dark, loose pants and overshirts. The girls wore printed satin-like dresses over net, solid-color, tutu-style petticoats.

Notes on Movement
The children had learned their routine, and stayed together. The primary variations were those that arose from differences in physical abilities.

Audience Perceptions
The audience applauded at the end when the children walked off stage; they did not take bows.

Notes on Performers
Barranquilla developed on Colombia’s Caribbean coast after steamboats began using the Magdalena River to deliver immigrants and export coffee. The area originally had been granted by the Spanish to reward military supporters who, in turn, exploited the labor of the Comacho. Once the port developed, immigrants from Germany and the middle East, especially Syria, settled. [3]

Marymount Colleges were founded in the United States and Colombia by Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary to educate women. [4] The high school in Barranquilla was established in 1953 at the request of former students. It expanded to include lower grades in 1980, [5] and began accepting boys the next year. [6]

Bi-lingual education began with four-year-olds, [7] and "learning takes place through play and the innate curiosity of children. This process takes place in a very pleasant and entertaining environment, using thematic axes from which dramatization, art, music, science and mathematics activities are derived, which are strengthened by the language." [8]

Availability
YouTube: uploaded by Nathalia Ochoa on 13 December 2014.

End Notes
1. She used this choreography when she was still with Ike Turner. The clearest example was a video of them on Italian television in 1971 uploaded by Storchengerippe on 10 September 2011. When she began performing as a soloist, the movements changed.

2. The Cossack dance in Ukraine was called Hopak. In Russian, it was known as Kazachok.

3. Wikipedia. "Barranquilla." The natives now are called Kamash. The migration of people from the Middle East was discussed in the post for 25 December 2017.

4. Wikipedia. "Marymount Colleges."
5. "Historia." School website.
6. Wikipedia. "Marymount International School Barranquilla."

7. Council of International Schools. International Schools Directory. Edited by Derek Bingham. Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: John Catt Educational Ltd., 2009/10 edition.

8. "Preescolar." School website. 21 July 2016. Translated by Google Translate.