Umoja

When I was living in Chicago, I discovered the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, the local African-American community theatre. They put on some wonderful productions. I saw one play there and it made me so homesick for the theatre experiences I had in high school, that I stopped by one day to see if I could help out. I was a bit nervous, being a white girl from po-dunk rural Oregon, but I went anyway.

The troupe was rehearsing Sophisticated Lady, a collection of Duke Ellington’s music. One of the guys was performing his tap dance number and apparently the rest of the cast hadn’t seen it before. He was fantastic! Afterwards, two of the girls held their hands over his shoes like they were sizzling hot. I was hooked.

Gwethalyn Bronner, the director, gave me the job of manning one of the spotlights. What a perfect vantage point to see the show!

Dress rehearsal was just a few weeks later. It was Saturday and we planned to run through the show twice. Everyone got into place and we did the first run-through. It was a bit rough in spots, but not bad, really.

But it was clear Gweth wasn’t satisfied. “Okay everyone, it’s time for an Umoja Circle.” A what?

We all gathered in one of the rehearsal rooms—cast, crew, musicians, everyone—and formed a circle holding hands. Gweth explained, to those of us who hadn’t been there long, that umoja is Swahili for “unity.” It’s one of the principles of Kwanzaa, the celebration of African history and culture that occurs around Christmastime.

Then we started chanting “Umoja means unity.” As we chanted, Gweth described her vision for this play—what she saw in it and what she saw in us, what we could accomplish when we all put our hearts into it. Around the circle we went, each person given a chance to share their thoughts, their vision, a prayer, a poem, whatever was on their mind.

When everyone had had a chance to speak, Gweth led the chanting louder and louder until it erupted into a huge cheer. I turned to the guy next to me, one of the musicians, and suddenly there was a connection between us. We saw in each other’s eyes that we were part of something greater than ourselves and we knew the other person would give it their all.

And we did. It was already 9pm when we started the second run-through. This time it was a show! The air crackled with the energy of engaged hearts, unified in a single purpose. And that energy carried through the entire run of the show. Every performance started with an Umoja CIrcle and ended up being a celebration of life and the power of the human spirit.