43 years on, Koroso dance still thrilling

Record has it that even before the arrival of the Sokoto Caliphate, social life of the Fulani and Hausa people dominated various cultural activities which usually occurred during the harmattan season.
Cultural and traditional activities are organized to celebrate the season. During that period, entertainment to the general interest of the people was usually staged to mark the end of the year and the beginning of the New Year.
However, as years went by and with contact with other civilized nations, the idea of mixing Sarewa (a traditional musical instrument of the Fulani, that provides a soothing and interesting rhythm with the Hausa musical instruments such as Ganga, Kanzagi, Duma, Kwarya among others to create a unique musical output) was conceived in 1972 by Malam Umaru Kiru, an employee of Kano Community Commercial College, alongside Malam Musa Lambu who happened to be a talented dancer.
They made selections of movement from various traditional dances of the Fulani and Hausa people of Kano State and put together in form of a single cultural dance group called ‘Koroso’ dance group, with the name derived from the rattle tied around the dancers’ legs.
Gradually, Koroso dancing has over the years become synonymous with Kano State, as no important function was complete without the dance group entertaining guests. Malam Salisu Sa’idu popularly known as Dambu is the head of department, Music and Dance, at Kano State’s History and Culture Bureau. According to him, He said he has been with the dance group since 1981 and has witnessed almost all the development recorded in its.
“The group started gaining recognition when it represented the state at the 1972 National festival of Arts and Culture in Kaduna, from where it featured in the World Black Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos (FESTAC “77) and gained wider recognition. The federal government of Nigeria also invited and sponsored them in September 1977 to visit North America, South America and the Caribbean Islands,” said Dambu.
It is a pleasurable sight to behold the dancers with their acrobatic and martial arts kind of display, coupled with the dancers’ dressing usually colourfully decorated with beads round their heads, wrists and ankles. The dancers have beaded rattles tied to their ankles and wrists (these are the Koroso for which the dance is named) which bring forth their own music as the dancers leap about the stage.
Usually, the Koroso dancers perform in pairs, sometimes assisting each other to achieve impossible shapes, sometimes striving individually to outdo the other.
However, it is recorded that the dance has changed over the last three decades. In 1987, a new choreography called Marwalle, drawing on a festive dance performed by youths during the harvest season, was blended into Koroso during the troupe’s entry into Nigeria’s National Festival of Arts and Culture. And so, gradually, Koroso dancing has become widely accepted to the extent that numerous small dance troupes have created their own unique versions of it by incorporating dance steps of musicians like M.C. Hammer and Michael Jackson, or Congolese Makossa star, Awilo Logomba.
Dambu explained that the group visited Stuttgart in West Germany in 1980, during the Northern Nigerian Arts and Crafts exhibition. The group was also in Kingston, Jamaican festival of the ‘International year of the child’. After the festival, the group moved to the United Nations and performed as part of Nigeria’s contribution to the International Drought Relief Fund.
“Koroso dance is performed in such a way that a change in the music dictates the change from one dancing style to another and it’s performed with a leader who gives commands on what ought to be done.”
Usually, the dance is performed by able-bodied youths because it demands the use of every part of the body, with special attention paid to uniformity and precision in movement and dance steps.
It was gathered that most of the group members are fully employed by the state government, while few of them who have joined the group based on interest, depend a lot on the money they receive from every performance, even as some are placed on monthly allowances.
However, many independent Koroso dance group have emerged within and outside the state with different modes of dancing patterns. But one thing remains clear, all these groups are referred to as Koroso dance groups, although the state’s History and Culture Bureau maintains its own troupe to perform at various national and international events.
Ironically, though the dance is known to have been a Hausa/Fulani inclined dance, some of the dancers are not Hausas, but came from the southern and eastern parts of the country. One of the dancers stated that Koroso dance ‘speaks all languages’ and that is why it is acceptable worldwide.
A Kano State based historian, Malam Idris Bashir, stated that, the Koroso dance group has been one of the leading custodians of the Hausa/Fulani culture. According to him, it is very vital for government to ensure that the welfare of the dance group is taken care of as it has gained international recognition more than any African dance group.
“It has given the state an identity in terms of culture and entertainment. The group should be adequately motivated and uplifted. I believe the state government has been doing a lot but there is the need to do more in order to keep the heritage going,” said Bashir.