This WMV (Windows Media) video features a special performance by the St. Columba Mvano (Women's Guild) Choir. Gifts to Presbyterians Sharing have helped provide training for music leaders in Malawi who are helping their churches reclaim their African musical roots.

“When Scottish Presbyterians established their missions in southern Malawi in 1876, one of their first evangelism strategies was to teach Christian converts European hymns translated into local languages. Over time, groups like the Mvano (Women’s Guild) developed a tradition of re-shaping these hymns to more accurately express Malawian musical preferences and spiritual perspectives by altering them musically and rhythmically, augmenting translated English text with Mvano composed text, and dancing to them while moving counter clockwise in a circle. The Mvano’s vast musical repertoire, which includes their own compositions as well as these reinterpreted hymns, is unique for its performance style, which utilizes drama, mime, and synchronized dance steps. That dance is fundamental to Mvano music and is significant given the history of controversy among Malawian and Scottish Presbyterians regarding the propriety of certain dances and expressive movements within Christian context, particularly in relation to women’s bodies.”

-- Extract from Clara Henderson’s dissertation Dance Discourse in the Music and Lives of Presbyterian Mvano Women in Southern Malawi

These choirs demonstrate their worship through music, Malawian style.

This video can be downloaded in two sizes:

• To download a large version (640x480, 40MB), click here
• To download a small version (320x280, 18MB), click here