Keep Calm And Azonto! But Should You Have To?

In case you had no clue what azonto is, let me enlighten you. Azonto is a communicative dance originating from Ghana with several moves to relay information to whoever is watching you dance.

The base move however still remains balancing your body on one leg while you whip the other left to right to create some sort of a gliding motion.

For your hand motions, you could either be punching the air above you or the one below you with your fists, your choice. Here’s a video of the dance.

Now that you’re acquainted with the dance, the question still remains should you learn it if you don’t already know it? There’s no one simple answer to this question, in the end it all boils down to you and who you hang with.

So let’s consider this scenario: it’s one that most of us have or will encounter soon enough in this challenging “azonto” era:

- You happen to find yourself in a social gathering with roughly 10 to 20 people; food, music, drinks and whatever else happens at a social gathering all on deck. The next moment, You Go Kill Me comes on and every one jumps to hit their azonto. Incidentally, you’re the only Ghanaian amongst them.

One of two things can happen:
Either you know the dance inside out and rise to the occasion. If that’s the case, then you don’t have to continue reading this post, you’re one of the lucky few. Otherwise, keep reading because this is not why we’re here.

Or the most interesting parts – 1) You don’t know the dance but you are able to somehow sit through the scorching eyes of people and every other mouth asking you to get on the dance floor without a scratch and feel cool all throughout. You’re good! you don’t need to learn the dance. (I  fall under this category by the way.)

2) You don’t know the dance and are really embarrassed like my best friend always is. In which case you really need to learn the dance. It’s as simple as that.

Still wondering? Let me break it down for you. If you’re not of Ghanaian origin, you can get away clean with not knowing the dance. However, to all the Ghanaians, if you can’t sit through the embarrassment please learn the dance…it’s not that hard!