The title is surely the wrong way round. As the cultural spokesmen, deejays, and video producers who pop up throughout this short documentary are at pains to point out, the dance craze Azonto which has swept through Ghana in the last few years (and through YouTube, with many millions of hits) is now spreading from the back-streets of Accra to London’s dance studios and freezing inner-city recreation grounds.
From its roots in reggae and hip-hop, Azonto has developed into a loose-limbed (and sometimes not so loose, at the UK end of things) form of performance that can be done singly in the privacy of one’s own empty pharmacy or in groups line-dancing in dusty yards and alleys. Meanwhile the flow of London-to- Accra traffic seems restricted to the enthusiastic Ghanaian kids’ Fly Emirates and England football shirts.
‘Music brings happiness to the body, and can also promote and bring you to various blessings’
Originating in the port of Jamestown, Azonto was something fishermen did after a day out on the boats and it rapidly caught on at churches, parties and school entertainments, in other words ‘one thing that brings us together’ in the view of artist l.t.z.Tiffany. It’s stressed that anybody can do it, as the movements tell a personal story, be it as basic as miming shaving and teeth-cleaning or developing golf swings into a routine. According to Robert Klah, President of the Ghana National Dance Association, much of the popularity of Jackson and Beyonce comes from their music being so integrated with dancing: how else to explain the success of Gangnam Style?
A number of infectious clips of Ghanaians demonstrating Azonto in a wide variety of locations including around Cleopatra’s Needle by the River Thames, skirt around any serious analysis of the phenomenon, though outside Studio 68 in Southwark (‘Artist Media Solutions’) a student reflects that ‘It’s nice to see something positive with an African origin – the media has a way of bending or stereotyping everything and African culture’s not always shown in the best light’.
We are left intrigued as to the words of ‘Cultural Leader’ Aburam Eric Obiri that ‘Music brings happiness to the body, and can also promote and bring you to various blessings’, whether it’s economic blessings – the interviewees all seem to be extremely technologically well-equipped – or just from a sense of enviable well-being.
THE AZONTO: LONDON TO ACCRA screens on 9 September at 13.00 and the 12th at 17.30 at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, as part of FCHE PRESENTS: DOCS.
httpvh://youtu.be/pvAuMZawc2c