PERFORMANCES: Friday at 10:00 a.m. and 9:30 pm Saturday at 9:30 pm Sunday at 3:30 pm Plus Appearances in the Grand Entries
SOWETO STREET BEAT Representing the Zulu Kingdom of South Africa

The featured Invited Cultural Arts Dance Group at this year’s 40th Anniversary of the United Tribes International Powwow is Soweto Street Beat, representing the Zulu Kingdom of South Africa.

Soweto Street Beat Dance Theater Inc. (SSB) is the only professional South African dance troupe in the United States. Their work began in 1989 in Soweto and relocated to Atlanta in 1992. They are incorporated and are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Their mission is to teach audiences of all ages and cultural backgrounds about the cultural arts and history of South Africa. Executive Director, Peter Ngcobo, and Artistic Director, Isabelle Doll Ngcobo, have fifty years combined experience in African Dance performance and instruction.

The SSB began as an organization, which targeted at risk youth surrounded by crime and poverty in Soweto Township of Johannesburg, South Africa. These young men were taught to become professional dancers, cultural ambassadors. They learned methods of channeling their energies that were building up throughout years of Apartheid into positive, creative activities. Today, SSB continues this teaching to South African youth, bringing them to America to study dance and to get valuable academic experience not readily available in South Africa.

SSB prepares an annual performance during Black History Month, in addition to special public shows and hundreds of school appearances throughout the year. These performances focus on the history of the Zulu Nation, and their unique dance and music styles that stem from South African ethnic groups:  Zulu, Swazi, Venda, Shangaan, Bushmen, Sotho, and Xhosa.

The dance performances of Soweto Street Beat have helped to set a precedent for contemporary dance and culture in the New South Africa. After Apartheid, SSB became the first professional South African dance company to perform at venues and festivals in South Africa, Europe and America.
Among some of their most celebrated appearances are:

• 1996 Olympic Festival (the only African dance company to perform in the Olympic Games)
• Annual performances at Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• Jimmy Carter’s The Atlanta Project (with Michael Jackson)
• The Lincoln Center for Performing Arts
• The New Jersey Performing Arts Center
• The Coca Cola World Cultural Festival

Over its history, Soweto Street Beat has performed for annual audiences totally approximately 5,000,000 persons which includes approximately 300,000 Georgia school students.

“In Atlanta, only one company offers consistently high quality, authentic ethnocentric
African dance. That company is Soweto Street Beat Dance Theater.”
-Former President Jimmie Carter

“Both High voltage and down and dirty with leaps worthy of Baryshnikov.”
-New York Times

“Direct from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ~ a group of talented South African men explode onto the stage in an extravaganza of dance, rhythm and song. Musically brilliant, physically amazing, Soweto Street Beat enthralls its audiences with a boot slapping celebration of urban Africa life. We’re talking pull your, heart strings resilience and a symbolic show of strength. We’re talking amazing acappella singing and Olympic displays of athleticism. We’re talking infectious laughter and the heat of the beat that sets you brain on fire and makes you want to dance yourself. We’re talking a hit! We’re talking mega-huge.”
-The Boston Globe