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African Drumming & Dance Group (Essence of Africa)

Experience the captivating rhythms and vibrant performances of The Essence of Africa, an exceptional music and dance group specialising in both contemporary and traditional African music, particularly from East Africa.

No matter the occasion, whether it's a wedding, party, festival, carnival, corporate event, or gala ball, The Essence of Africa delivers a performance that caters to all audiences. Their music, energetic dance routines, and colourful costumes will have both young and old dancing and clapping to a fusion of African rhythms, Soca, Khalimba, Lingala, Soukous, Zomba, and captivating drumming and storytelling acts. All performances are exclusively delivered in African languages, adding an authentic touch to their entertainment.

The group showcases a wide range of traditional instruments, including the Adungu (Ugandan harp), Akogo (Thumb piano), Amadinda (Xylophones), Ngoma (drums), Endigidi (tube fiddle), and many more. Their songs, dances, and drumming predominantly originate from Africa, with a particular focus on Uganda. The artists draw inspiration from their personal experiences and past, infusing their performances with authenticity and skill, while incorporating other techniques to create a truly memorable experience for your event.


STANDARD LENGTH OF PERFORMANCE
We suggest a performance format as below:

  • To do 1 x 30 minutes performance or 2 x 15 minutes sets
  • Performance of African Drum and Dance Showcase
  • Audience Participation towards the end to show the guests some African Dance moves.

The group would bring along some spare dancing costumes (raphia skirts) to hand out to guests to try out for their fun interaction/participation.


AFRICAN WORKSHOPS
If you're seeking a unique experience for your team-building day, schools, or other events, we provide engaging drumming workshops to entertain your audience.

  • Our most popular workshops are from 1 to 4 hours or in some cases a whole day.
  • African Dance Workshops
  • African Drumming Workshops
  • African Singing
  • Story Telling Workshop
  • African Musical Workshops

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What our clients say

Many thanks for your great professional service, the guys on the night were fabulous, engaging and friendly, arrived, set up and ready to go in good time, provided great photos and were a great success!

Link for photos sent through quickly, the changes I requested were made speedily and I would definitely use your services again for any future requirements and recommend you to anyone else.

RKH Specialty

I just wanted to contact you to thank you for the people you sent to us, they were really good and provided the anticipated wow factor to our party.  Your ladies were good fun, great entertainment and happy to get involved in events and help out.  They really got our event off to a good start.  Please send them our thanks and appreciation for providing such marvellous entertainment.

Tekhnicon

The event went great, thank you very much. Please pass on our thanks to the 3 guys, they were very good and we had many people approach us to say how good they were.

Institute and Faculty of Actuaries

A BIG THANK YOU for last week’s fantastic performance! Everybody really enjoyed the singing. It was a shame the event was running late but your group understood and were amazing!

Homebase Ltd

Your performers were amazing!

The magician was absolutely brilliant everyone was very impressed.

Our managing director was a big fan of the break dancing waiters and he said it was planned very well.

Grain London Ltd

We had a great night with your bingo entertainment. Your host Peter certainly played his part in that.

Sky Sports

Please do pass on our thanks, the feedback was very impressive and the entertainers did an excellent job.  The guests were very happy.

The Economist Group

Just wanted to send you a note to say that Rick was just such a rock star on our stand this week at Black Hat Europe.  He is just such a super chap and totally wonderful to work with.  He just rocks up and gets on with things, we had some issues with our cabling and he sorted that out and then just keeps rolling all day.  He chats away with all the ‘customers’ and is a joy to work with.  All our team at Carbon Black, just love him. 

Carbon Black

The event was a huge success and we have had some great feedback. It was certainly one of the most popular areas of the night!

Chelsea Football Club

It was a great night and we have had fantastic feedback on all the acts that you provided.

The acts went down really, people seem to enjoy them and each one appealed to a different group so a nice mix for all staff.

KPMG