Afrikafestival Hertme 1994 - part 2

The Afrikafestival began more or less by chance. The University of Groningen had invited a traditional dance group from Burkina Faso to celebrate their lustrum and were looking for more performances to spread the high costs. The Foundation committee, asked by coincidence, took a chance and let the group perform twice on a warm Sunday in 1989.
Without a stage and without amplification, the group performed under tropical circumstances. The atmosphere was very African, with perspiring bodies in clouds of dust and the sounds of drums to far in the distance with great success. In the evening there was a repeat performance with fire and burning torches and people came from far and near drawn by the sound of the drums. A festival was born!
The committee decided to make it into a tradition and drew up a more varied programme for the following year. In spite of the sombre weather, the attendance was greater than the first year and since then has increased in leaps and bounds.
The third year brought, apart from the traditional groups, a popular urban guitar band from Kenya, Simba Wanyika, with dance music bringing the whole public to its feet. However, the group was no longer visible behind the dancing masses so that it was decided to build a stage the following year. At the same time the market on the theatre terrain grew, with all sorts of African products, crafts and African food.
Using good publicity (also in national newspapers), the festival gained a national character and people came from all over the country to Hertme. The formula has not been changed since then, namely a varied programme with traditional music, spectacular dance as well as swinging modern music, and all this in the relaxed atmosphere of a beautiful open-air theatre, where everything African can be seen, heard and tasted.
In 1994 the festival's national publicity gained a great boost by the making of a Dutch television programme in which the festival could be enjoyed an hour long on Dutch National Television. Since 2006 the NPS, a national public, non-commercial broadcasting company is making recordings for the Dutch radio.
1994 - 6th Festival: Makwaela Dos TPM (Mozambique), Ifang Bondi (Gambia), Abebe Daniël (Ethiopia), Tsu Tsu Blema (Ghana), Ballet Theatre Lemba (Congo-Brazzaville), DDC Mlimani Park Orchestra (Tanzania).

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