“Move the hips,” shouts Kuku-Siemons, a 32-year-old African American, as 20-40-year-old dancers, scarves tried around their waists, shuffle to the beats from a music player. “The pelvis is the basis of the Afro jazz dance. The stomach and the back muscles have to be strong and flexible, especially since the dancers will soon be learning the manjini, a Senegalese dance that is considered the world’s fastest,” adds Kuku-Siemons, who has been studying at the Delhi School of Economics for the past four years.

Anish Popli, a Delhi-based choreographer and among the few Indians in the class of mostly white Americans, says: “The moves are so different from regular western dances that even a veteran like me is struggling.” The Black Dance is based on beats rather than melody. “Africa’s greatest gift to the world is drums. Sometimes, 12 drums are played simultaneously and a dancer must move the upper torso to the beats of one drum and the hips and the legs to another,” explains Kuku Siemons, adding that he frequently uses the more familiar funk music in his class. To make the moves more relevant, he also shows clips of African dances and traces the history of various rituals associated with dancing.

The response to the course, priced at Rs 3,000, took him by surprise—he had to extend the strength of the class from the planned 10 to 25. Kuku-Siemons says that by the end of the course, students will be well versed in Dogon, an ethnic dance of Malian tribes, and a Congolese pop dance, besides the manjini.

One of the spurs to start the course was the growing fan base of singers like Beyonce Knowles. “I find their focus consumerist. I would be worried if India got the wrong idea about African culture,” says Kuku-Siemons. “The best way to introduce India to Black concerns is through our music and dances.” So he plays the songs of Sela Kuti, a Nigerian singer, Nina Simon and James Brown “who make meaningful music”, and is looking for space where he can teach Black aesthetics to Indians.