February is African Heritage Month, which aims to preserve and promote African cultural heritage. Dancer and singer Merlin “The Enchanter” Nyakam is coming from France to help us do just that at the Issamba event on February 15.
Nyakam was born in Cameroon, Africa. He admits that he is more comfortable speaking in French, saying it’s sometimes tough for him to get his point across in English.
“My English is not so good,” he says. “I mean, I can have a conversation, but sometimes when I want to explain more difficult things, it is not so easy.”
However, that doesn’t stop Nyakam from communicating and showing the passion he feels for dancing. His love doesn’t just show in his moves onstage—it’s in his expressions.
“Dance for me, it’s the life,” he says. “Yes, it’s life. It’s inspiration. If I got no inspiration, it mean[s] that I’m [dead].”
Nyakam has been dancing since the age of three, joining Cameroon’s National Ballet at the age of 14. He became the main lead for the company at only 16. Nyakam says that his love for dancing started early—very early.
“I remember it was maybe three years old, but when I ask my mom, ‘Mom, do you know when I start to dance?’” he says, laughing, “she said, ‘Baby, when you was in my stomach, and [when] I was listen to music or I go some place that had music, you was dancing.’”
That doesn’t mean that he has always had an easy time with dancing in his family. Nyakam says that dancing just wasn’t a career path back when he was growing up.
“It was just funny because everybody was saying, ‘Wow, Merlin is [a] very good dancer.’ But for them and for many people, it was cultural. I mean, the dance was a part of the culture, so it was not a walk. So, they was happy, but they want me to go [to] school because you could not say my walk is ‘dancer’ at that moment.”
But he fought his way to the top—Nyakam is now a choreographer and teacher and has won many awards. He created his own company in the 1990s, and he won a dancing award a year later. Nyakam also danced for singer Angélique Kidjo on her FIFA World Tour, and he remains her choreographer.
“We dance with our body [when] we have to have a conversation,” says Nyakam. “We have to say some story, and it’s very important for me, when we dance, we have to know where the movement go[es]. You know, it’s the expression of the body, so all the body, it’s speaking, and sometimes maybe we don’t need to understand what the body [is] saying. But we need to get some emotion.”
Nyakam’s theory of dance starts with traditional African dance—where his first inspiration came from—and then eases into all the rest, letting the passion flow and come together. Nyakam invites everyone out to the show in February to see the passion for themselves.
“So, I really invite everybody to come, and come with family,” he says. “Bring the kids, mother, father, elders—together.”
Issamba
7:30 pm Saturday, February 15
$25, Dave Dunnet Community Theatre
africafest.ca