By Mark N. Mengonfia +23-1776105060/+231-888105060– mmenginfia@gmail.com
A 69-year-old Liberian traditional dancer, Keini Tokpah says she is getting old and needs some young Liberians to be trained to replace her when she leaves the dance stage.
Madam Keini Tokpah dances a special traditional dance wherein she skips her feet in a fast movement on the dance stage, as she moves her body with the radium of the traditional instruments.
Born October 16, 1950, old-lady Tokpah says she started practicing Liberian traditional dance since she was very young, but because she is aging, she wants training be conducted for youngsters to replace her.
She was speaking recently at a traditional gathering in the capital, Monrovia, where she performed and won the admiration of those who had gone for the program.
According to her, she desires to see more Liberians who believe in the tradition and cultural of the country to see reasons to form part of the training.
She has a piece of land in Bong County which she is willing to donate for the construction of traditional training home for young traditional dancers, Madam Tokpah says.
“Few years from now, I will be unable to dance my traditional dance,” the 69-year-old traditional dancer predicts.
According to her, first she used to dance for hours before leaving the dance stage, but due to her age now she can no longer spend long time on the stage.
Bursting into laughter, the traditional dancer intimated: “yourself saw today how I danced; I did not stay long on the dance stage”.
Dressed in her African attire with a red, white and blue African skin-hat with “gamble-seeds” around it to match with her white, blue, red, green bees overlapping her lower abdomen, the Liberian and African traditional dancer has stressed that it is very important for the tradition of the country to be kept and preserved by its people.
“It is just that cultural dance is a physical thing, but I am old now,” she adds.
According to her, it is time for President George M. Weah and people who love African culture to invest in her to help develop the land she has in Bong County.
“I have served five Presidents now and I am getting very old now,” she explains.
Liberia as a country has a very rich culture and its traditional and culture have been practiced for many years by its people.
The culture of Monrovia has two distinct roots, the Southern US heritage of the freed America-Liberian slaves and the ancient African descendants of the indigenous people and migratory tribes.
Most former Americans belonged to the Masonic Order of Liberia, outlawed since 1980, but originally playing a huge part in the nation’s politics. Settlers brought the skills of embroidery and quilting with them, with both now firmly embedded in the national culture.