Every 14 seconds a human being in Africa dies of AIDS, according to CBS News.
On Friday more than 500 triangle community members came together on UNC-CH campus to help ameliorate the dire AIDS situation in Africa.
The transpiring event was the inaugural Triangle Dance Festival for AIDS, and, according to Marie Garlock, the chief event organizer, it was effective.
“It was an incredible success,” Garlock said. “We sold 530 seats and raised $5,500 for AIDS clinics in Kenya, India and North Carolina.”
Garlock said she was happy to have sold so many tickets, given the $10-$15 ticket price and the fact that it was a Friday night.
The dance festival featured 20 performances by community and school-based groups. When asked what the night’s highlights were, a group of students outside Memorial Hall unanimously proposed that the spoken work poetry by EROT (Ebony Readers Onyx Theater) was the most memorable.
“Man, that spoken word was powerful,” Ben Smith, senior in English, said. “It really got me.”
The EROT poets spat emotionally charged verses about loved ones dying of AIDS that held the crowd at attention. At a particularly stirring moment during a young black woman’s poem, a somber male voice said meditatively, “Talk to me.” A feeling of concurrence resonated after the simple statement.
But the ambience was not all somber.
Many of the dance troops were charged by wild ecstasy or fervid pride. The Bhangra Elite, a UNC Punjabi folk dance organization, blew the crowd away with their pounding rhythms and happy smiles.
UNC sororities Zeta Phi Beta and Delta Sigma Theta had members of the crowd yelling out, “I see you, Rene!” while they stomped and clapped, representing their respective sororities with pride.
Dance groups Que Rico, MiscONcEption and Kamikaze got the crowd hollering in response to pulsating beats and suggestive movements.
A performance of a piece called “Crying,” choreographed by Robin Harris, the director of N.C. State’s Dance Program, brought tears to the eyes of one student in the crowd.
“I don’t know exactly why it made me cry,” Sarah Darling Atashi, sophomore in English, said. “It was just so amazing.”
The dance entailed women pouring water onto themselves and each other and lunging into emotionally suggestive positions around a table.
Not all of the night’s four-hour event was performance, however. Baba Chuck Davis, a black man of size famous for his charismatic presence and contributions to African dance in America, hosted the event with both entertainment and authority, making sure the crowd was aware of the serious reasons for the event.
Davis at one point handed the mic over to UNC student Marce Abare, who informed the audience of a meeting that will bring people to the corporate headquarters of Gilead, a pharmaceutical company that on the front page of its Web site proclaims its commitment “to increasing global access to Truvada and Viread for people living with HIV.”
Gilead talks the talk, but does not follow through on its promises, according to Garlock and Abare.
The meeting will take place today at 3 p.m. in front of Davis Library on UNC-CH campus.
