SanDance!

Writer and producer Richard Wicksteed has spent decades filming the San, Africa’s oldest tribe numbering around 130,000 people scattered across southern Africa. SanDance follows dancers from rehearsals in remote Kalahari villages to uplifting performances at Botswana’s annual Kuru Dance Festival. Dance, particularly healing dance, is central to the San culture. It’s a way of connecting with ancestral spirits. As an elder explains, if the children don’t learn to dance “our history will be over.” The film offers a rich ethnographic experience that affords a rare window into a vanishing culture.