The actor playing the character of langston assumes a different persona, that of a university lecturer. He walks in wearing a different jacket from that worn by langston before, and goes to the podium. He is holding a piece of paper from which he reads as he introduces bloke.

LANGSTON/UNIVERSITY LECTURER: Good day, students. Today we have a very special guest who will be speaking on African rhythms in music and dance. He is a very experienced South African cultural activist who worked for Drum magazine in South Africa for many years. He is brought to the United States by AMSAC in association with the United Negro College Fund. Let us give a warm welcome to our guest speaker, Mr William Bloke Modisane.

BLOKE: Thank you. I am afraid that if you think I am here to talk cultural theory, you might be disappointed. I believe that there is only one way to communicate music and rhythms – it is through practice. Perhaps many of you remember the first time your parents bought you a guitar or violin, or the first time you pressed the keys on a piano. Maybe you even did classical training at school, and you learned music theory before actually playing.

Not so much in Africa. We are born with music and dance. Singing and dancing rituals are performed when our mothers are pregnant. Music and dance is part of our lives from the beginning – that is, before birth – throughout our living experience, to after the end of life. We sing when we are sad, we also sing when we are happy. Our protest songs and dance can easily be confused with celebration. The mark of all these acts is the rhythm.

African rhythms can be captured in the most natural phenomena to the most sophisticated instruments. It can begin simply with a tap of your fingers. [bloke demonstrates by tapping his fingers on the podium.] Please join me.