Documentary Films

Keep the Dance Alive



by Rina Sherman
color, 75 & 50 min, 2007








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A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western 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 Otjiherero-language-speaking peoples of northwestern Namibia and southwestern Angola.

Visit the filmmaker's website: www.ovahimba.info

"The film itself is quite marvelous, and will be particularly fascinating for those with an interest in anthropology, music, and particularly you ethnomusicologists out there." — Theresa Anasti, Feminist Review

Cinémathéque de la Danse's communiqué (French/English)

Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
La Cinémathéque de la Danse, Paris, France, 2008
International Festival of Films on Tribal Art & Culture, India, 2008
Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York, 2007
RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, Manchester, England, 2007
IV Moscow International Visual Anthropology Festival, Russia, 2008
European Association of Social Anthropologists' Film, Video & New Media Festival, Slovenia, 2008
XXII Pärnu International Film Festival, Estonia, 2008