Keep the Dance Alive

A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of northwestern Namibia and southwestern Angola.

Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death.

The documentary presents a singular vision of the Ovahimba people, that of director Rina Sherman who filmed the lives of an Omuhimba family for seven years. She focuses on how singing, rhythm and voice work together with dance and spirit possession to compose a complete imaginary universe and a dense and complex social structure. Keep the Dance Alive is part of 'The Ovahimba Years', a long-term multi-disciplinary ethnographic study of the Ovahimba and other Otijherero-language-speaking peoples of northwestern Namibia and southwestern Angola.