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The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story. 2000. 75 minutes, color. A film directed by Craig Foster and Damon Foster. For more information, contact Earthrise Productions, 14 Dunluce Avenue, Cape Town, South Africa; [email protected].
This South African documentary is about the life of the !Xo people of the Kalahari, depicting these San Bushmen's skills in hunting and tracking, their traditions and beliefs, and the ways in which their lifestyle is altered and compromised as a result of the impact of the Western world and modernity. Told by a hunter named !Nqate (meaning "always walking") Xqamxebe, The Great Dance seeks to offer an insight into San cosmology and gives an idea of their free, self-reliant lifestyle in the past and their current troubles and challenges. According to the film's directors, members of the San community portrayed in this film were actively involved in its actual production processes. The Great Dance differs from the Gods Must Be Crazy films in that it depicts the Bushman less as a romanticized source of amusement for "civilized" Westerners and more as a highly skilled, dedicated, and intelligent expert in the intricate arts of tracking and hunting. The hunter is shown to be tireless in his endeavors to feed his family. The scenes depicting the "hunt by running" or "chasing hunt," in which a tribesman runs a kudu to the death, emphasizes the Bushman's endurance and skill, the way in which he is able to "put on" the animal's mind. The portrayal of hunting seems to resonate with San Bushmen viewers themselves. According to Belinda Kruiper, interviewed in the Northern Cape on September 28, 2000, "I watched Vetkat watching it and the Bushmen. And they were in the soul of the hunter and in the hunted...