Children’s Game #28: Nzango

Tabacongo, DR Congo, 2021; 5:41 min
In collaboration with Rafael Ortega, Julien Devaux, and Félix Blume

 

Born in the recent past in school playgrounds and now a national sport, Nzango is a female-only game. The aim is to imitate, or more mysteriously, anticipate, the leg movements of the facing player. The pace is set by both teams singing and clapping in unison, faster and faster. Local variants thrive, ignoring the official rules. This, the girls’ own invention, involves “minus” and “times” signs, the first a mirror image – A’s right leg, B’s left leg – the second a crossed diagonal. And yet all the outsider perceives is a series of lightning confrontations, as pairs, then other formations, hop and kick ecstatically, advance and retreat according to an inapprehensible logic, telepathically improvised, perhaps. What geometry rules the final blur of legs?

Lorna Scott Fox

Public domain videos can be downloaded and shared with others as long as the authorship is credited and there is a link back to the website of the author. These videos cannot be altered in any way or used for commercial purpose nor cannot be displayed or exhibited without the consent of the artist.