It all begins in Zululand in 1871.

 

The Zulus celebrate their departure for the mines of Johannesburg South Africa, leaving their wife and children in the hope of a better living.

 

In the suffocating heat of the mine, half naked and dressed in skins, the minors create the first codes of rhythmic languages using their tools.

 

As time goes by, the minors leave their skins for pants and rubber boots and the first rails are installed.

 

Forced to work in an unsanitary and inhuman conditions, many of them die. Discovering a body lying in a cocopan, one of the minors starts to shout. He is immediately warned by one of his own reminding him that it is strictly forbidden to speak. This is how they start hitting their boots in order to be able to communicate which each other.

 

Other deported minors from Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe meet with South African minors and exchange the different rhythmic codes of their languages giving birth to the dance of gumboots.

 

Over time, during their break, the minors meet to share a beer singing and dancing all together.