Videos Of Namibia's Omupembe Traditional Dance

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a three part series that showcases traditional dances of the Ovambo people of Namibia, South Africa. This post features examples of videos of these dances which were published on YouTube from 2012-2014 (to this date).

This post features examples of the male dance "omupembe" and comments about that dance. This dance is similar to the familiar USA game known as "leap frog".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/07/videos-of-ovambo-owambo-traditional.html for Part I of this series. Part I features examples of videos of these dances which were published on YouTube from 2009 through 2011.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/07/videos-of-ovambo-owambo-traditional_15.html for Part II of this series. Part II features examples of these dances which were published on YouTube from 2012-2014 (to this date).

Some information about the Ovambo people is also included in these posts.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who work to keep traditional performing arts cultures alive. Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE OVAMBO PEOPLE
From http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2014/03/ovambo-owambo-people-agricultural-and.html#
"The Ovambo people (sometimes called Owambo) are an amalgamation of diverse agricultural Bantu-speaking people occupying international border regions of southern Angola and northern Namibia, popularly known as Ovamboland. The Ovambo people are by far the largest ethnic group in Namibia and make up just over half the population...

The Name Ovambo (Owambo)/Geography
It is maintained in the source literature that the Ovambo owe their name to their neighbours the Herero. Tuupainen (1970:12) states that the term ‘Ovambo’ is derived from the Herero ovajamba, meaning ‘wealthy-people’, whilst Loeb (1962:9) claims that in Herero dialect ‘ovambo’ means ‘people-with-the-cattle-posts’, because the Ovambo had to graze their cattle north and east of the living area.

Although the two interpretations of the term differ, what is important is that they both contain a reference to Ovambo economic prosperity and relative political power based on ivory trading (jamba: elephant) and pastoralism/cattle raiding....

History
Ovambo people are part of the Great Bantu Migration from West Africa and Central Africa through Great Lake area and further down to Upper Zambezi and to later migrated gradually to their present locations in Namibia and Angola. Ovambo people met San and Khoikhoi people of Southern Africa. Ovambo people like all the Bantu people brought iron technology to Southern Africa and used it as a superior weapon to pushed away the aboriginal tribes making to possible for them to occupy their land.
-snip-
Click http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Namibia.html for general information about the African nation of Namibia.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE OMUPEMBE DANCE
Google Search for the word "omupembe" resulted in this summary for a website that is no longer accessible:
"Omupembe Gwandema (Namibian culture) - Videos On ...
vod.com.ng/en/video/.../Omupembe-Gwandema-Namibian-culture
“Its mostly done at villages; Weddings, anniversaries, schools, or any time mans are in the mood to have fun, they will start Omupembe dance."
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Also, "Omupembe" is also a place name in Namibia. http://na.geoview.info/omupembe,3354387
"Omupembe is a populated place and is located in Ohangwena, Namibia"
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I don't know if that means that was the place where this dance was created.

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FEATURED VIDEOS
These examples are presented in chronological order based on their posting date on YouTube with the oldest dated posts presented first.

Example #1: SWAPO Party Omupembe dance



swapoparty, Uploaded on Sep 23, 2009
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Comment:
Titus Angula, 2010

"No[w]* you are talking, this is what we do in Namibia, i mis this dance, we call it Omupembe gwandema, Ndema was the founder of this dance, so it was named after him. We must keep on posting more of our tradition for the next generation."
-snip-
*I added the letter in brackets to complete the word that is probably meant..

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Example #2: Omupembe Gwandema (Namibian culture)



Uploaded on Jun 3, 2011
Its one of the Namibian Wambo (Ethnic group) traditional dance and its only done by mans.

Its mostly done at villages; Weddings, anniversaries, schools, or any time mans are in the mood to have fun, they will start Omupembe dance.

The dance known for the Kwaluudhi and Ngandjera tribe.

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Example #3: omupembe



shivute paulus myself, Published on Mar 27, 2014

Kwaluudhi and Ngandjera traditional dance

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