The Mary V. Jordan Multicultural Center hosted the ZuZu African Acrobats on Feb. 23 to celebrate Black History Month. The event was held via Zoom, as well as in-person in the D.P. Culp Student Center Auditorium.
The performance included six acrobats who all had various skills taught through oral tradition in Africa from as far as 5,000 years ago. Energetic music and dancing complimented the acrobats as they performed skills such as contortion, balancing on stacked chairs in the air, spinning multiple bowls with props and even riding a multi-wheeled unicycle.
The ZuZu African Acrobats are a group based in California that travel to many different countries to showcase traditional acrobatic arts. The group, originally from Kenya, performed various traditional acrobatics such as acrobalance, contortion, hooping, plate spinning and freestyle BMX.
The entire show was set to traditional African music, including a drum solo at the beginning of the program. The performance also included a section to educate the audience on the importance of how these skills were passed down through oral tradition.
“It’s so much harder trying to figure out if [an event] will be interesting to the students,” said Laura Terry, the Multicultural Center’s director of programming and outreach. “How am I going to get something that students are going to want to come out to?”
The ZuZu African Acrobats had a successful turn out, with roughly 100 attendants in-person and via Zoom combined.
“It was just good to see that some students wanted to come out, so it was good we were able to provide that to them,” Terry said.
Terry, on behalf of the Multicultural Center, hinted at more in-person events being announced at a later date. To learn about future events, visit etsu.edu/students/mcc/.
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