UR celebrates 30 years of African dance on campus
Campus Life
This past March, against a tall film-screen backdrop of swirling clouds, 1998 alumna Markita Boney Brooks returned to campus to dance. She wore a flowing purple and white dress paired with pointe shoes. Her movements, like her attire, were inspired by African dance and classical ballet.
Her solo came midway through the first half of Ngoma African Dance Company’s annual showcase at Modlin’s Alice Jepson Theatre. The 2025 event marked the company’s 30th anniversary, making it the oldest student-led dance organization on campus.
Brooks, an entrepreneur and ministry leader, held a place of honor in the evening’s festivities. In the fall of 1994, she founded Ngoma after witnessing the performance of a visiting African dance company on campus.
“I thought to myself, we need something like that here at the University,” Brooks said. “I walked up to a lady in the front row — I could tell she was part of the group — and said, ‘That was absolutely amazing. How can we do something like that here?’”
Brooks chose the name Ngoma, a Swahili word that means both drums and dance, for the UR dance group. Thirty years later, the company is going strong.
At a 9 p.m. rehearsal in the Modlin Center before the 30th-anniversary showcase, a dozen dancers dressed in black sweats and Ngoma T-shirts rehearsed short segments, sometimes only four beats long. In one corner, artistic director Babadunjo “Baba D” Olagunké kept time by hitting a drumstick against a wooden desk. His demeanor was gently stern as he provided guidance.
“You know those skeletons that hang up in anatomy class?” he asked one student whose movements were too stiff for his liking. “That’s what you look like.” Both laughed, and she relaxed.
The students speak about Baba D, the company’s artistic director for 29 years, with immense affection. He is a professional dancer and choreographer who works with performing arts organizations and school programs throughout the greater Richmond community. “If you meet him, you won’t forget him,” said Anaiya Forte, a junior and one of the company’s two co-presidents.
As junior Aida Lette, the other co-president, put it, “Ngoma is his baby, something he holds dear to his heart.”
The 30th-anniversary performance, featuring 14 vignettes and live drumming by an eight-person percussion ensemble, captured the company’s range. The works included traditional West African mask and harvest dances, student-choreographed works, and an audience dance-along led by Ngoma alum Keyona Ham Hargett, a 2001 UR graduate.
The program’s fourth piece, “Asmara to Addis Ababa,” was presented by another student organization, Horn of Africa, which focuses on East African dance. Formed last year, it is one of several student dance groups that Ngoma has nurtured. Others include companies that are now UR institutions, such as the Bollywood Jhatkas and Block Crew, which focus on Indian dance and hip-hop, respectively.
“It feels very good to know that we had a hand in some of the other dance groups’ origins,” Lette said. “We’ve created a community that helps create other communities.”
That legacy has been one of the most rewarding aspects for Brooks as she’s watched Ngoma develop over the past three decades. “That’s such a blessing to me,” she said. “African dance is about celebration as a community.”