"As long as there will still be townships [South African ghettos], there will always be pantsula, because it is a way of life," said Linda. "It is a defiance. It is a statement to say, 'We can outlive poverty.'"

Pantsula dance was born in the 1950's in Alexandra township, one of South Africa's oldest apartheid era ghettos outside of Johannesburg, where blacks were forced to move beginning around 1911.

The dance developed as a way to cope with the trials of a adapting from rural life to urban life as South Africa's black population rapidly migrated to the country's urban centers. Alexandra, like many other townships under apartheid, became a highly dense area, deprived of basic services.

Pantsula appropriated many of the set pieces of this new urban life, e.g. trains, beer crates, brooms, etc., and incorporated them into a new style of dance.

Pantsula's attitude and dress code were heavily influenced by American film and music. But today's dancers are trying out South Africa's own hip-hop culture for inspiration.