San Francisco Frontiers - South Africa's amapiano has the world dancing

With energy and purpose, they rehearsed a sequence in the style of the house music subgenre born on the streets of the townships around 15 years ago and now showcased by stars like Beyonce and Tyla.

Soweto's Finest Dance Studio draws dancers of all kinds -- from ballerinas to party-goers -- to learn the amapiano moves sweeping the world through TikTok tutorials and challenges.

Amapiano "is not about the words but you feel it inside of you," said Venus Chidinma, 25, a professional dancer from New York who studied at the studio for several weeks.

"It doesn't matter where you come from, what race, what colour -- you feel it and you have to just move. It's just from inside you," the Harvard graduate told AFP.

Central to the sound is the log drum, a distinctive bass that sets it apart from other forms of dance music. It blends soulful jazz and deep house with 1990s kwaito to create a local genre with no strict rules.

The dance style mixes up others, from the coordinated quick steps of South African panstula to the "baleka" move that closely resembles Michael Jackson's iconic moonwalk.

"Its authenticity to South Africa makes it stand out," said Thando Nhlapho, the 21-year-old professional dancer and choreographer at the landmark Soweto studio.

Nhlapho, still glistening from her latest class, creates and posts dance videos on social media to "get my name out there".

"I don't only dance to amapiano but I choose to use amapiano as a marketing strategy because it is now the trending thing, the hot thing globally," she told AFP.

- Global language -

"Amapiano is so powerful, it's taken over Africa," said Emmanuel Mwenya, 25, a choreographer from Lusaka.

"In Zambia, we dance and sing along to the music even though we do not understand the lyrics," said Mwenya, who spent a week in South Africa to learn the style.

"We do amapiano but it's never original. So I thought I'd take the time to come here to learn something original," he said at the studio.

Amapiano is its own language, said the professional dancer who also uses social media to promote his work. "Whether you speak Zulu, Bemba, Nyanja, English... it all connects, no matter where you're from."

This spirit of inclusiveness comes to life on social media, where people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures unite in dance challenges, like the one for "Tshwala Bami" on TikTok that was taken up by US performer Jason Derulo.

"My mom is 46 years old today and even at her age, I still teach her some TikTok dance challenges," said 21-year-old South African Snethemba Mathe, her face lit up.

Xiaoying Zhan, 30, brought three friends visiting from China with her to a class.

Zhan, who is from China but now lives in South Africa, said she caught on to the amapiano beat during the Covid-19 lockdown around five years ago. "I was enjoying the music and that is why I started dancing to amapiano," she said.

"The music has a lot of upbeat tempo," she said, listing South Africa's DBN Gogo and Uncle Waffles, originally from neighbouring Eswatini, as among her favourite artists, but only after Tyla.

According to Spotify, amapiano featured in more than 855 million streams recorded in 2024 alone, making the genre a powerful promotion tool for career dancers.

"Amapiano is something that's so easy to vibe to," said Chidinma, the dancer from New York who posts videos of various styles on her Instagram account. "Whenever people come up with a dance, it's going to go viral," she said.

Z.Phillips--SFF