In traditional headdresses, leg rattles and grass raffia skirts, Rwandan children dance about ecstatically, smiles as wide as the log xylophone nearby. Adults stand before engoma drums, pounding out rhythms of war, courtship and hope.

The supreme joy present on stage makes it hard to believe how horrible a past the performers have suffered. Each has been personally confronted with death and disease; their native country buckles under the weight of a 60 percent unemployment rate and 2.4 million orphans.

“The show is a great expression of themselves in spite of the things that have happened to them,” says Empower African Children Director Alexis Hefley. “All of our children have either lost one or both parents to AIDS or to the rebels in Northern Uganda, or they come from vulnerable situations.”

They channel the joy, not the suffering, to help bring hope. Empower African Children is devoted to giving young children in Uganda the opportunity to get a secondary education and potentially a U.S. college scholarship that will allow them to return to Africa empowered to rebuild the country. As the face of EAC, the Spirit of Uganda tour gives 22 East African kids between the ages of 6 and 18 a chance to relay their lives, histories and cultures through dance and song. Their 2010 tour, which will ultimately take them to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, stops in Carmel Sunday, Jan. 31.

Accompanied by the instruments of various East African countries – adungu (harps), empuunya (drums) and okalee (flutes) – a unique choreography flows through cultural rituals like the courtship of the Banyoro and Batooro people and less pleasant episodes like the loss of loved ones to civil war and AIDS.

“To empower children, to make a change in this world, nothing is better than letting their voices be heard,” says Artistic Director Peter Kasule. “Our performers are the young faces of Africa, the leaders of tomorrow, the composers of our stories, and the makers of our memories in this new century.”

THE SPIRIT OF UGANDA performs 7pm Sunday, Jan 31, at Sunset Center, San Carlos and Ninth, Carmel. $37-51. 620-2048. For more on Empower African Children, visit www.empowerafricanchildren.org.