The earliest inhabitants of Botswana were the Tswana people who played its first music, including popular folk forms sung nationwide. With a diverse population of ethnic groups, the majority of the population is Batswana, and music is a large part of the culture.
One of their popular dances is called Seperu, a celebratory dance performed by the Vekuhane (Basubiya). It is a folk dance that involves singing, dancing, and ceremonial practices that have a high significance in the Veekuhane community.
The Seperu dance is also called the Basubiya dance. It is performed when they celebrate ceremonial occasions like the coronation ceremony of a chief, birthdays, weddings, harvests, and the arrival of special guests.
This type of dance is performed mainly by women, who wear a special bright multi-layered dress called the "mushishi". The dancers' movements reveal the layers underneath as they move their torsos. The male dancers usually lead the dance with a flywhisk and a whistle. The women form a horseshoe, while men face the women at the end of this horseshoe.
As other members of the group imitate the sounds of a male dove, the leader of the dancer uses a flywhisk to direct and choose the female dancer. The chosen female dancer then shows off her dancing skills by reflecting an image of a peacock tail with the layers of her dress. Then the dancers will clap their hands and swing their skirts to reveal the colorful layers sown inside.
A vocal group encircles the dancers to sing and clap along throughout. This dance of transmission is done both verbally and through observation. Despite its importance to the Veehukane as it’s a key symbol and pride, the Seperu folk dance is diminishing in number, affecting its visibility and transmission to younger generations. Now there are only 194 active practitioners, but twelve of them are master practitioners. They are all over seventy years old, and all of them have received their knowledge and practices from their elders.
Hopefully in the future, using modern wedding ceremonies, current curricula in schools, and modernization, traditional methods of transmission will allow community members to move from one district to another.