Wala

No, it's not another Naomi Robson cannibal story!

Gam and I went to see Ghanaian dance/music troupe Wala at the Judith Wright Centre of Performing Arts in Fortitude Valley last night. The last such outing we had was to Wil Anderson's 'Kill Wil' at the Powerhouse, so long ago I can't quite remember when it was. As for getting a taste of Ghanian culture in Brisbane, that's a new one for us. We were in kind of a rush and forgot to bring the camera; as it was there probably wasn't much in the way of photo opportunities because we got there 10 minutes before the official start time and had to sit right up the back. Pictures from the website will have to suffice.

Five members of Wala were performing; their website has biographies for eight members. The standout of the show for me was the master drummer- I can't for the life of me figure out which of the two master drummers listed in the biographies he is, but he was awesome. It was amazing his hands didn't fall off, given the beating they took from all that drumming. I still preferred the music-vocal pieces to the drumming displays (probably because they weren't as abusive to my poor eardrums- see below), but the guy was seriously talented.

Not the Master Drummer, but by far the coolest drum.

The dances were interesting- I don't know the first thing about Ghanaian dance or traditional Ghanaian music styles, so I don't know if the pieces performed were contemporary or traditional, but I can say I don't think I've ever seen human beings fit such a large amount of movement into such a small period of time. The whole group looked incredibly fit (all that drumming, I suppose), but the two dancers must have had the stamina of elite athletes to be doing what they did.

The costumes were a bit funny- I'm not sure who designs them, but when I was in Ghana people wore such a volume of clothes that their dress seemed most suited to an Australian winter, and the fabrics were nicer. Wala wore a motley collection of funny jumpsuit-type things with weird cutouts. Probably much better for drumming and dancing than regular clothes, but I couldn't help wondering if their Western audiences have an expectation that all Africans run around shirtless or something.

Come to think of it, Gam is far better qualified to comment on these things than I am. I should have let him make this post :)

Wala's performance was extremely energetic and entertaining, but the Judith Wright sound guys had the mikes up way too loud for the drum performances. After 2 hours or so, my eardrums felt as if they were made of furiously popping bubble wrap every time the audience clapped. I'll get the gripes out of the way by saying I think the performance was about half an hour too long. I'm sure Wala like to see their audience have a good time, but having the people who were seated at tables in front of the stage get up and dance for what must have been at least 15 minutes while the General Admission audience looked on quickly became a bore. Seeing middle-aged white people dance jerkily to unfamiliar foreign music is only entertaining for a few minutes at most.

After it finished, we made our way back to the train station via a very nice gelati store where (as usual) I couldn't make up my mind as to the flavour I wanted, so the guy at the counter said I could taste-test a few, noting that I could have up to four flavours in a single-serve cup if I so desired. As it turned out, I was hooked on the first flavour I tried, which was Jaffa, until the guy said he also had a chocolate-banana flavour. So we got both flavours in a single serve; Gam wound up having most of the Jaffa because he has a thing about banana flavour, but I thought it was fantastic.

I couldn't make it a deep enough orange without losing all the facial details, but you get the impression!

We hadn't been out in the Valley at night for years, so getting to perve on all the weird clothes, makeup and hairstyles people were wearing was good fun. Getting smoked all over was not good fun. We saw one girl wearing what looked like a plastic bag accessorised with sticky tape over the top of her skirt, and another girl who had white blonde hair and a round face like Emma Bunton (of the Spice Girls) but with skin so orange she looked hot in the way that chicken fresh from the tandoor looks hot. Kind of like a hybrid of Baby Spice and Margaret Pomeranz (minus the wrinkles). She was wearing all white, which set off the tandoori tone even more. Most people seemed to consult with all their friends about what they were going to wear that night, because most people we saw were in groups of people dressed in a nearly identical fashion.

We missed our train to Toowong by a matter of minutes and hailed a cab that turned out to be driven by a Somalian guy who came to Australia in March last year. He was passionate about football and clearly hated using his brakes- he touched them about twice in the entire trip, and practically fumed every time he was forced to do so. It was a tad nerve-wracking, but we made it back to St Lucia in record time, and were home before the next train would have arrived at the Brunswick St Station.

Back to uni tomorrow...