ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses key aspects of the Nama Stap Dance that position it as a 'site-specific' dance. These include the Nama Stap movement pattern/motif itself, the dance's historical link to the Nama village context (place), and the significance of architecture in the form of the matjieshuis/mat house to Nama women and to the Nama Stap Dance. The chapter examines the Nama markers and demonstrates how they continue to provide the foundation for the contemporary version of this dance of solidarity between Nama women. It discusses three aspects of Nama ideology as it relates to Nama women and as they are embedded in the Nama female puberty ceremony. The chapter also examines how these have been reconfigured in what author has labelled the Nama Stap Dance-Puberty Version, a twenty-first-century version of the historic Nama female puberty ceremony. The matjieshuis, however, remains an essential artefact of the Nama Stap Dance-Puberty Version that connects it to the Nama female puberty ceremony.
