African dance is a performing art deeply woven into the social fabric of Africa and generally involving aspects of music and theatre as well as rhythmic bodily movement. It is an integral part of a larger system, expressing dynamic forces that constantly influence each other.
Dance in African and African Diasporan cultures crosses many boundaries. It is part of celebrations, religion, war, and theatre. It comes in many forms, from masquerade to ritual spirit dance to theatre. Some of these dance forms are intertwined, and a masquerade dance can be done as part of a celebration or a ritual dance ceremony mourning the death of a community member.
African dance develops and creates spaces through which ideas about person, self, gender, and morality are made and contested. Additionally, African dance and music traditions are a way to bring ancestral and spiritual wisdom to the present.
Top 15 Facts About The Cultural Significance of Traditional African Dance
Cultural Significance and Social Purposes
In African societies, dance serves a complex diversity of social purposes. Within an indigenous dance tradition, each performance usually has a principal as well as a number of subsidiary purposes, which may express or reflect the communal values and social relationships of the people. In order to distinguish between the variety of dance styles, therefore, it is necessary to establish the purpose for which each dance is performed.
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Often there is no clear distinction between ritual celebration and social recreation in dance performances; one purpose can merge into the other, as in the appearance of the great Efe mask at the height of the Gelede ritual festival in the Ketu-Yoruba villages of Nigeria and Benin. At midnight the mask dramatically appears to the expectant community, its wearer uttering potent incantations to placate witches.
The dancer then moves into a powerful stamping dance in honour of the great Earth Mother and the women elders of the community. The dance continues as the performer pauses to sing the praises of people of rank, carefully observing their order of seniority. In this way a ritual act becomes a social statement, which then flows into recreation as the formal dancing by the Gelede team gives way to free participation by spectators until sunrise.
The great Efe holds a central position, entertaining his audience with tales that make comic and satiric reference to irregular behaviour within the community over the past year. The more significant the concept expressed in a dance, the greater the appreciation of the audience and the more insistent their demands for a skillful performance and for movements that fit its purpose.
Dance is appreciated as a social occasion but is simultaneously enjoyed as an activity in its own right, entertaining and giving pleasure as an expression of communal life. The aesthetic values of a society expressed through dance represent beauty and the best it has to offer.
A Gelede masquerader dancing in the courtyard of the Ibara palace in Abeokuta, Nigeria.
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The Religious Context
Thought systems traditional to African cultures are rooted in a world view in which there is continuous interaction between spiritual forces and the community. Spiritual beings may inhabit natural elements or animals and may also take possession of human mediums. This possession of persons is usually temporary and confined to ritual, as when the priest of the Yoruba god Shango dances into a state of deep trance at the annual festival, expressing the wrath of the god of thunder with the lightning speed of his arm gestures and the powerful roll of his shoulders.
In Zimbabwe the Mhondora spirit mediums, who relate the Shona people to the guardian spirits of the dead, enter a trance through the music of the mbira lamellaphone, to which they sing while performing simple, repetitive foot patterns. Thus, the dances of priests and mediums confirm their ritual leadership.
Dance is used as therapy by ritual societies in many cultures. Hausa women, for example, find healing through dance and spirit possession in the Bori cult. Among the Jukun of Nigeria, a similar organization is called the Ajun, whose elders deal with hysterical disorders in women by exorcising evil spirits in initiation ceremonies.
During a three-month period in a house shrine, the sufferer is taught songs and dances that have a therapeutic function culminating in a ceremony in which the initiate publicly joins the members of the society to perform the Ajun-Kpa dance. The female spirit mediums of the Kalabari in the Niger delta, using dance and song as an essential part of their therapy, are also credited with powers of healing.
Yoruba in Nigeria performing a dance in honour of the god Shango.
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Many African religions are based on a bond of continuity between the living and their dead ancestors, who, in some cultures, return as masquerade performers to guide and judge the living. The complex web of human relationships is continuously renewed and restated at ritual festivals through the arts. Adherents of traditional religions in Sub-Saharan Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million.
The traditional beliefs and practices of African people include various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs and festivals . Every aspect of life in Africa is imbued with spirituality. To a great extent there is no formal distinction drawn between sacred and secular, religious and non-religious, spiritual or material. In many African languages there is no word for religion, Sacred rituals are integral part of daily life. Ancestor worship is common in Africa and is an important part of religious practice.
Characteristics of African Dance
African dance moves all parts of the body. Angular bending of arms, legs, and torso; shoulder and hip movement; scuffing, stamping,and hopping steps; asymmetrical use of the body; and fluid movement are all part of African dance.
Traditionalists describe the dancing body in Africa as a worshiping and worshiper body. It is a medium that embodies the experiences of life, pleasure, enjoyment, and sensuality. The body of the African dancer overflows with joy and vitality, it trembles, vibrates, radiates, it is charged with emotions.
Many African dances are the means by which individuals relate to ancestors and other divinities. What ever the motivation of the dance, it combines the expression of human feeling with the higher aspirations of man to communicate with the cosmos.
Dance expresses dynamic forces which constantly influence each other. Humans (both living and the dead), animals, vegetables, and minerals all posses this vital force in varying amounts. In a sense, each divinity is created and empowered by the concentration and devotion of the worshipers. If there is no human effort, there is no god and thus no chance to enhance the quality of life.
West and Central African religious practices generally manifest themselves in communal ceremonies or divinatory rites in which members of the community, overcome by force , are excited to the point of going into meditative trance in response to rhythmic or driving drumming or singing.
Ceremonial Dances and Their Significance
Dances appear as parts of broader cultural activities. Dances of possession and summoning are common themes, and very important in many Traditional African Religions. They all share one common link: A call to a Spirit. These spirits can be the spirits of Plants or Forests, Ancestors, or Deities.
The Orishas are the Deities found in many forms of African religion, Each orisha has theirfavorite colors, days, times, foods, drinks, music, and dances. The dances will be used on special occasions to honor the orisha, or to seek help and guidance.
Griot dance not only represents historical documents, but they are ritual dramas and dances. (Yorubas in Nigeria, on the right bank of the Niger River, but also in Benin, Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso and Côte dâIvoire) .
Orisha â in the native religion of the Yoruba people â are spirits sent by The Supreme Creator Olodumare. The Bantu beliefs are the system of beliefs and legends of the Bantu people of Africa.
Music and dance in the Congo are omnipresent, mixed, community based, sacred or festive. The Massai are a semi-nomadic herding and warrior population of East Africa, living primarily in central and southwestern Kenya and northern Tanzania.In Maasai culture, nature and its elements are important facets of their religion.
Key Elements of African Dance
Modern African dance styles are deeply rooted in culture and tradition. Many tribes have a role solely for the purpose of passing on the tribe's dance traditions; dances which have been passed down through the centuries, often unchanged, with little to no room for improvisation. Each tribe developed its own unique style of dance, falling into three categories based on purpose. The second is griotic, and was a type of dance that told a story. It is named after a griot, which is a term for a traditional storyteller in West Africa. The third type is ceremonial. However, many dances did not have only one purpose. Rather, there was often one primary purpose, that blended into many secondary purposes.
Dance was often very important to the maintenance of a ruler's status in the tribal society. Colonialism and globalization have resulted in the eradication of certain styles of African dance.
As people were taken from Africa to be sold as slaves, especially starting in the 1500s, they brought their dance styles with them. Entire cultures were imported into the New World, especially those areas where slaves were given more flexibility to continue their cultures and where there were more African slaves than Europeans or indigenous Americans, such as Brazil. African dance styles were merged with new cultural experiences to form new styles of dance.
For example, slaves responded to the fears of their masters about high-energy styles of dance with changing stepping to shuffling. However, in North America, slaves did not have as much freedom to continue their culture and dance. In many cases, these dances have evolved into modern dance styles, such as African-American dance and Brazilian dance. For example, the Calenda evolved in Brazil from tribal dance.
Table of African Dance Styles and Their Origins
| Dance Style | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Adumu | Maasai | Jumping dance performed during the warriors' coming of age ceremony. |
| Mokhibo | Lesotho | "Shoulder dance" predominantly seen in the southern part of Africa, done by women. |
| Muchongoyo | Zimbabwe | Dance performed by men, with participation from women in the form of singing and playing of instruments as well as dancing along on the sidelines. |
| Umteyo | Xhosa | Dance performed by young men, in which the whole torso is undulated rapidly. |
| Agbekor | West Africa (Fon and Ewe peoples) | Warrior's dance. |
| Moribayassa | Guinea (Malinke people) | Solo dance performed by a woman to celebrate overcoming significant hardship. |
| Agbadza | West Africa | Original rhythm and dance. |
Traditional Practices and Cultural Resistance
Traditional dance in Africa occurs collectively, expressing the values and desires of the community more than that of individuals or couples. Although dances may appear spontaneous, they are usually strictly choreographed. In traditional African societies, children begin to learn their traditional songs, rhythms, and dances from the moment of birth, starting with the lullabies sung by their mothers.
While carried on their mother's backs during day-to-day work and social events, they are exposed to the music their mothers sing or listen to. Thomas Edward Bodwich, an early European observer, noted that "children will move their heads and limbs, while on their mother's backs, in exact unison with the tune which is playing."
Many traditional African children's games, particularly in western and central Africa, include elements that promote the child's ability to understand rhythms. When children are old enough to attempt the dance moves, they imitate accomplished older dancers until they can replicate the dances precisely.
Musical accompaniment for African dances is highly varied. Most dances make use of the human voice in the form of singing, shouting, recitations, grunts, whispering, and other vocalizations. Many groups use drums.
Many African dances are polyrhythmic, that is, they use two or more conflicting rhythms simultaneously. Dancers may synchronize the movements of different body parts to different rhythms, or alternate fluidly between rhythms. Dancers in Nigeria, for example, commonly combine at least two rhythms in their movement, or three if they are particularly talented. Any more than that is a rare feat.
They may also add rhythmic components independent of those in the music. Dance historian Jacqui Malone describes how different groups use body parts in distinct ways: "The Anlo-Ewe and Lobi of Ghana emphasize the upper body, while the Kalabari of Nigeria give a subtle accent to the hips. The Akan of Ghana use the feet and hands in specific ways.
