scholarly journals Dancing into Ubuntu:

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Kahmaria Pingue ◽  
Rebecca Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
West African ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Culturally Relevant Curriculum ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Bachelor Of Education ◽  
West African Dance

This inquiry describes the lived experiences of five Bachelor of Education students learning and teaching Kpanlogo, a West African dance. Each experience was conceptually analyzed with the Sankofa bird, depicted with its beak reaching back to retrieve a golden egg on its back. This symbol embodies the Ghanaian proverb, to go back, physically or spiritually, to retrieve what was once lost or forgotten. Such a framework orients us to the philosophy of Ubuntu, which posits that humanness is found and cultivated within community. What this inquiry reveals is that while it was awkward for some, it was possible for others to dance toward Ubuntu. In sharing these experiences, an example is provided for how we might introduce culturally relevant curriculum in teacher education programs. This inquiry thus describes what it was like to connect a learning experience, in this case the Kpanlogo dance, to the community in which it is situated.  

From the Bamboula to the Baby Dolls

Walking Raddy ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 89-108
Author(s):  
Jennifer Atkins
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
West African ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Twentieth Century Music ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
Baby Doll

Baby Dolls embodied the rambunctious, ambulatory dance practices of New Orleans' African-American community, playing with ragtime dancing, a style in conversation with early twentieth century music. Baby Doll dancing referenced their contemporary situation, empowering them through ribald street jaunts full of dynamism, while also relating to other cultural practices like jazz funerals and connecting them to a historical legacy that traced back to Congo Square (and earlier). Essential to Congo Square, where the Bamboula dance featured prominently, was that West African dance aesthetics persevered but also blended with sociocultural ideas influenced by its New Orleans context. Improvisation was key. Dancing, whether in Congo Square or ragtime style, highlighted spontaneity and a spirited—even competitive—style that cultivated agency while acknowledging a communal presence. These moments (and movement) were vibrant, illuminating Baby Dolls as innovators within a rich, cultural tradition that left troubles behind as liveliness surged through their dancing processions.

Kankouran West African Dance Company, Washington, D.C.

2019 ◽  
pp. 104-113
Author(s):  
William Serrano-Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
West African ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Educational Vision ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The One ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
The U.S

Amaniyea Payne, dancer/choreographer and Artistic Director of Muntu Dance Theatre, offers her reflections on Muntu’s more than four decades in Chicago, Illinois. There, in mid-west U.S.A., Muntu shines a bright and powerful light on African dance, due in major part to its artistic and educational vision, which has been influenced by Payne’s artistic research and global dance connections. Her research and artistic experiences display the seminal connections among Diaspora dance artists, highlighting their similar concerns regarding education of African, diasporic, and non-African peoples. Payne and Muntu exemplify the characteristic duality of professional African-based dance companies in the U.S.: on the one hand, she and the company develop and present fascinating, contemporary choreographies using traditional African vocabularies and on the other hand, they are enmeshed in educational projects and neighborhood and community development through dance.

The Economy of West African Dance in Italy

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 27-31
Author(s):  
Claudia Brazzale
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Dance ◽  
The Past ◽  
African Migrants ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
Important Form ◽  
Diasporic Communities

Over the past decade, so-called African dance has become increasingly popular in Italy, growing in tandem with local West African diasporic communities and the national concern over immigration. Although the circulation of African dance provides West African migrants with an important form of self-identification and subsistence, it often revolves around problematic discourses rooted on the myth and romance with the primitive. Constructing and capitalizing on the fetishization of black bodies, African dance mobilizes complex economies of desire that rest on an orientalist fascination with the Other. While these economies reify racist stereotypes, they also enable significant communities of knowledge and interracial encounters.

Sauce!

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Esailama G. A. Diouf
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
North American ◽  
West Coast ◽  
West African ◽  
Early History ◽  
The West ◽  
African Dance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Culture Transmission ◽  
West African Dance

Esailama Diouf delves deep into history and genealogy to detail the significant politico-cultural figures, dance artists, institutions, and cultural nationalist positions that allowed for a reclaimed connection between African diasporic dance forms and spirit knowing. Dismantling still lingering European and North American notions of Africa and African dance and drumming, which permeate the early history of dance in the Americas, Diouf points to restoring notions of genetic birthrights and culture transmission for African Americans through a renaissance of West African dance and music on the West Coast, specifically in California. Her findings give dancers more awareness and understanding and thereby, the chance to embody their claim to spirit through communal African dance and music

Maureen Pytlik

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Bakan
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Clarinet Performance ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
And Mathematics

In 2017, Maureen Pytlik graduated from Ottawa’s Carleton University with degrees major in both clarinet performance and mathematics. Her curriculum also included advanced music theory studies and West African drumming and dance. She describes her West African dance experiences as transformative. “I was quite happy to open up and be awkwardly uncoordinated,” she relates, “because it was something that created a lot of group bonding in a way. Feeling part of the group was very important to me because having Asperger’s means it’s not something that I experience easily.” African dance, and drumming too, helped Maureen to navigate a dichotomy which has been difficult for her to manage in her life, and one that she identifies closely with having Asperger’s: the conflicting pulls of competing desires for control and freedom. “I am pulled in these two different directions,” she acknowledges. “My modes of being can fluctuate between the two styles of having control and experiencing freedom, but I have a hard time (as with any polar opposites) hovering in the middle between them without gravitating toward one extreme or the other at any given time.” Music and dance, especially of the West African variety, have enabled her to move closer to achieving that elusive balance.

Casualties

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-171
Author(s):  
Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
African Dance ◽  
West African Dance

West African dance classes are sites of social and choreographic reproduction. They depend on difference, mistranslation, and choreographic failure rather than sameness.

Dancing with the Dragon: Orality and (body) language(s) in a live performance of Beowulf

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Jeff Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Solo Performance ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Performance Texts ◽  
West African Dance

This paper theorizes on the function of language and embodiment in northern European storytelling through a self-reflex analysis of the author’s experience performing Beowulf in its original dialect, as a solo, while dancing. Beowulf is Min Nama involved memorizing approximately 80 minutes of the medieval Beowulf epic in its original West Anglo-Saxon dialect (lines 2200—2766, Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon). Grappling with bardic verse for recitation in experimental live performance uncovered new facets in ancient performance texts.  Working with the Beowulf poem for stage revealed the mnemonic quality of alliteration, the pervasive use of rhythmic patterns to signal shifts in ideas (a strategy similar to West African dance), and perhaps “deep rhythms” present in medieval northern Europe. As impetus for choreography, the verse contains rhythmic information, corresponding to musical/dance concepts such as pick-ups, counterpoint, and syncopation.  Beowulf is Min Nama also required a theory of dialect for Old English, which the author based on modern Swedish, medieval Frisian, and modern Frisian — especially the voices of Frisian poets Tsjêbbe Hettinga and Albertina Soepboer. The project thus provides an entrée into the nexus between ancient and modern storytelling, and concludes that contemporary Frisian poetry represents a direct inheritor to ancient solo performance forms.

Black Dance and the Fight for Flight

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Fatou Gittens
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Black Women ◽  
West African ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Black Dance ◽  
Women Dancers ◽  
The Arts ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The 1960S

The arts have fulfilled a major historical role as mediums of expressivity for people of African descent during the 1960s. It is during this important decade that a number of political and artistic movements came to rise—like a pot waiting to boil over—as a result of decades of sociopolitical precedents that came to a head, sparking revolutionary responses by grassroots communities worldwide. This body of writing is an excerpt of a larger study the author conducted on the role of West African dance as performed by Black women dancers in New York City–based dance companies. Because of the techniques of djembe and sabar dance within traditional West African contexts for both dancers and drummers alike, the author closely examines these styles as leading examples of the types of physical movement within political movements of the 1960s era—movements that empowered and liberated oppressed peoples during moments of high tension.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document