Lethbridge College closes the books on Black History Month with African dance

Black History Month celebrations wrapped up Thursday at Lethbridge College with a number of African dances and some Sudanese-inspired cuisine.

Lethbridge — Black History Month celebrations are just about wrapped up as February comes to a close, but Lethbridge College celebrated one more time Thursday, with performances from some of the many different traditional African dance styles.

Arts Marvel choreographer Abdulaziz Sanr said dance plays an incredibly significant role in many different black cultures, saying dance is a way to connect with one another even if you don’t know each other.

"We go on about like how people don’t know about other cultures at all, but we don’t do that much to showcase it and show other people. And how are they going to know if they don’t see it?" Sanr said, in an interview with CTV News.

"That’s why things like this are really great, because you get a chance to show other people and when they get intrigued and entertained by the little things, then they come and ask more questions. And then you can enlighten them and tell them okay, this is what we do and this is where it’s from."

Sanr added that it was great to see so many other places across the world starting to embrace Black History Month including Lethbridge College.

Dance was just one form of expressing celebration and in many cultures, food is another form of expression. The celebration was marked by serving one form of some traditional Africa food with plenty of hot sauce going around while performances continued.

School of Justice Instructor Ibrahim Turay said the traditional foods range throughout the continent of Africa. He explained that since so many of the countries are close to each other, a lot of the traditional African foods are inspired by neighboring countries.

The food served at the celebration was a mix of Sudanese and Arabian-inspired dishes.

"I wanted to expose people to one aspect, a simple aspect of the differences we have within foods," Turay said. "And if you eat foods within the West African region you’re going to have a different taste of the food items as well. So I thought that this might be a good way to introduce people to something that perhaps they may not be familiar with."

Turay added that he wants one take away from the celebration to be eliminating stereotype and misconception of the black community.

The aim of the celebration is to give people a better understanding of the diverse cultures within different black communities around the world, as well as making people more comfortable when it comes to asking questions.

In 1995, Canada officially recognized February as Black History Month, and in 2017 Alberta became the fourth province to officially celebrate it.