African Dance

ABSTRACT
Festival is an age long aspect of the oral traditions of a people in a given society. It is a periodic event celebrated at an appointed time in a community. Most societies of the world have festivals to commemorate certain events of their past. Africa is a home to many traditional festivals which are rooted in rituals and have served as communal platforms for the people to commune and reminisce with their distant past showcasing ideological affinities to celebrate life, death and rebirth with entertainments. However, the Western inferiorisation is that the African traditional festivals are "quasi-dramatic" and therefore lack the Western dramatic structure. This problem is further made complex by lack of documentation of some of these festivals which results in the lost of some key components of them, a case study of this festival under review. This study attempts to identify and analyse the theatrical performance and aesthetics (dramatic elements) in Odu Festival. The study uses performance theory and structural functionalism to analyse the festival. The study adopts qualitative research approach for data collection and analysis in Doma community of Alago in Nasarawa State, North Central Nigeria. This includes interviews and the researcher's participation (as a participant-observer) in the festival performance. Findings of this study establish the existence of a traditional drama which varies from the dramatic axioms of the West. The study is an addendum to the growing corpus on African Drama and Theatre, and is significant as a reference material for further academic exploration.

Keywords: Alago, Odu Festival, Theatrical, Performance, Aesthetics, Doma

The term “English Alabasters” refers to the serialized production of sculptures and reliefs carved from alabaster in various medieval English centers. Before the English Reformation—an event that significantly curtailed the production of sacred art in England—alabaster manufacturing had reached an industrial scale. These products were widely exported across Europe, appealing to a diverse audience that included political, cultural, and religious elites (both English and Continental) as well as the lower strata of society. As such, the manufacture of alabaster represents not only an artistic phenomenon but also a broader socio-cultural one with extraordinary reach.
This essay examines the various qualities attributed to alabaster in the past, focusing on Italy as an ideal case study. It aims to reestablish the meanings associated with alabaster works, proposing interpretations that complement existing scholarly theories about their widespread success. Methodologically, the study adopts an integrated approach, analyzing the works themselves alongside documentary evidence that references these objects in diverse ways.
Through this analysis, the essay demonstrates how the use of alabaster by artists and patrons, as well as its reception by audiences, was influenced not only by symbolic, material, and aesthetic considerations but also by complex cultural dynamics and significant contingent factors.

The 2018 Sarr-Savoy report promoted a political context favorable to the development of laws and directives by European countries. Some countries – e.g. France, Belgium – are finally tackling the restitution of their colonial heritage by modifying the national legal framework. Although these examples are still linked, in many ways, to a Eurocentric vision, they correct an international legal system that, until a few years ago, was insufficient, encouraging the current spread of repatriation initiatives.

The economic activities in Badagry had profound impact on the social and politicallives of the people. Indeed, existing studies on Badagry concentrated more on tradition of origin, slave trade, Christianity and fishing industry of the town to the neglect of the economic development and commercial sector in Badagry. This study, therefore, investigates the commercial and business activities in Badagry town. The paper went further to examine the economic organization of the town from when it was founded to the present. Indigenous industries and peculiar productions as well as the activities of women in the economic development of Badagry are equally discussed in the paper. Attention is paid to the indigenous commodities that were exported outside Badagry kingdom as well as those goods that were imported into Badagry markets for sales. The paper also examines the role that market played in the transformation and development of Badagry over the years.

Kizino dance originates from the SouthWestern region of Uganda among the Bakiga ethnic group. It is characterized by music, vigorous strength, stamina, and agility for both female and male members of the community. The transmission process of this dance has been conducted mostly by experienced dancers trained either from folk-dance groups or through the local ways of transmitting dance (community events of practice) such as weddings, birthdays, and other celebratory events. Most traditional dance groups in the diaspora are majorly situated in the cosmopolitan areas and are for-profit, which influences the methods of transmission. These methods however bear colonial legacies and therefore sometimes misrepresent the core essences of the dance, through de-contextualization of the enaction process. What are the practical ways of mitigating these colonial markers in the process of transmitting Kizino dance in a diasporic context? With practice as research (PaR) methodology, I practically used the embodied dance skills as a vehicle to elicit reflections from the trainees. Decolonizing Kizino dance transmission in the diaspora would call for the application of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) embedded in the Bakiga ethnic group. The knowledge derived from practices such as clapping, ululation, stomping, modulation as well as masquerading transcends the anecdotes of Kizino which are the fundamentals of this dance. This paper presents the discourse of colonial methodologies by applying IKS in the transmission of Kizino dance in a diasporic context. The inconclusive research results in this paper demonstrate that decolonization of Kizino dance transmission in the diaspora promotes indigenous knowledge systems ingrained in the Bakiga ethnic group.

Abstract Every human community has a reason for dancing. These reasons are usually not in isolation of the happenings around them. You can therefore find in a peoples‟  dance  what  led  to  their  choice  of  movements  and  the  way  they execute them. These are usually a product of the worldview such community. This is why this paper looks at the worldviews - the factors responsible for the  choices,  packaging  and  appreciation  -  of  dances  in  the  Yoruba communities of South Western Nigeria. It employed analytical methods to deduct  the  reasons  behind  dancing  and  appreciation  of  dance  in  the communities.  It  was  discovered  their  language  (axioms),  behaviour  and beliefs  that  the  perception  of  the  Yoruba  people,  to  a  very  large  extent, dictate  and  control  their  dances.  The  paper  concludes  that  custom  and traditional beliefs of the Yoruba people dictate significantly the methods and practice of dance in their communities. Keywords: Dance, Worldview, Yoruba people, Yoruba dance

This article situates the concept of dance within the worldview of Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular. It views dance from the lens of dance practice and scholarship. It specifically gives meaning to dance from the perspective of its nature, functions, and identity in Nigeria.

Ghana has undergone several political regimes which has invariably affected every aspect of the Ghanaian live. This paper retrospectively illuminates some of the political dispensations we have had as a country and reviews how they influenced Ghanaian theatre. It critically examines how the Ghanaian theatre opened itself up to the growing political regime changes taking on nuance development and desistance. The paper covers a broad timeframe assessing the approach to which the various governments valued art and for that matter theatre. From Pre and Post-Independence, existing political regimes have contributed or failed to contribute to development of the arts. The paper highlights contributions and developments that occurred during the various political regimes of the Nkrumah, Busia and Rawlings. Considering the influences of the political regimes, this paper strongly avers that there should be a policy document on theatre arts within a considerable time frame that commits every po...

The gong performance is popular in many ethnic groups around the world. For each ethnic group or each cultural region, the gong performance has its own peculiarities, Phu Yen, Vietnam is a province in the central part of Vietnam, and it has a long process of historical acculturation. The set of gongs used in the area among the Cham Hroi and Bahnar people share similarities as shown in the nam of the two ethnic people groups-the Cham Hroi and Bahnar and closely tied to the cultural rituals and ceremonies of the groups. On the basis of the theory of acculturation, this study indicates that this set of musical instruments has been through the process of cultural exchanges, selections and changes in the two groups. Notably, this study also indicates that the Cham Hroi and the Bahnar are the owners of the gong set, and the original number of the gongs in the setwas decided by the groups.

Este texto pone el foco en los cuerpos y corporalidades de los protagonistas de Historia Kiria (1930) de Pedro Figari, asi como en sus danzas y cantos ancestrales. En esta obra literaria, Figari parece concebir lo afro, lo criollo, lo europeo, lo originario, desde el mismo sentido integrador que caracteriza su obra pictórica. Diversos pasajes de Historia Kiria, nos acercan a una serie de prácticas corporales con reminiscencias en los principios de las técnicas somáticas de comienzos del S. XX, en los movimientos de las danzas sagradas de Gurdjieff, asi como en los rituales africanos celebrados en América durante el S. XIX.

Las Jornadas Figari pensador surgen en el Museo Figari como una serie de instancias de reflexión colectiva donde se abordan aquellas facetas de Pedro Figari que no se relacionan únicamente con las del pintor, sino que lo abarcan como un intelectual transformador de la realidad social, con un pensamiento crítico que atraviesa las épocas. En Historia Kiria, obra literaria de género impreciso —¿novela?, ¿fábula?, ¿utopía?—, Pedro Figari despliega una línea narrativa humorística referida a un pueblo de la antigüedad remota, cuyas costumbres y saberes movilizan a los lectores del presente. Pablo Thiago Rocca

Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse https://www.cairn.info/revue-savoir-agir-2016-2-page-83.htm Découvrir le sommaire de ce numéro, suivre la revue par email, s'abonner... Flashez ce QR Code pour accéder à la page de ce numéro sur Cairn.info. problématique incertaine », Revue française de science politique, vol. 46, n° 5, 1996, pp.753-791. 3. Le collectif SPEL est composé de 11 chercheurs/ses qui ont mené une enquête collective sur l'élection présidentielle et les élections législatives de 2012 :

This paper examines dance as an interpretative theatrical element in the process of directing "Trapped in the Web", an unpublished drama written and directed by this researcher. The paper evaluates the performance in relation to how dance, choreographed by Funmilola Owolabi was employed to achieve holistic performance appeal and aesthetics. Adopting the participant-observation research method, the study reveals that dance plays significant roles in play interpretation. One of the findings of this study is that the fusion of dance into a play production requires an understanding of different types of dances, their backgrounds and socio-cultural functions. This helps in avoiding a misrepresentation or mis-presentation of the socio-cultural setting of the play. Hence, this paper concludes that African/Nigerian theatre audiences appreciate and prefer theatre performances that are well garnished and embellished with dance(s); thus, dance should be considered by play directors as part of directing elements in order to enhance the dramatic actions, rhythm, mood and tempo of the performance.

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ABSTRACT
Ritual performance happens in almost all cultures because it involves a set of physical and spiritual activities by which an individual or a group promotes heart desires. Culturally, ritual performance functions for both religion and social entertainment. This paper attempts to investigate the aesthetics functionalities of ritual festival performance. Using Vothun Hunwe Ritual Theatre of the Ogu of Badagry as micro study, this paper submits that Vothun ritual festival performances give equal emphasis to both the religio-cultic and aesthetic functionalities of theatre performance, that is, they have a blend of both religion and entertainment.
This paper is driven by Victor Tuner’s Theory of Ritual. The Theory of Ritual is an ideology that is based on religious and cultural perspectives of ritual existence. The Theory expresses on the belief about society and the functional purpose of keeping human beings in their social place, including their existential purposes.
The paper adopts the method of Content Analysis to show that Vothun Hunwe performance can appear in two ways; a stationary setting performance, where the entire events take place in a specifically identified location such as Honto (village square) and Vothun-Honto (frontage of the shrine), including its processional form where the activities of the festival float to an identified groove or shrine.
Key words: Vothun, Ritual, Theatre, Festival, Ogu, Badagry

Évoquant un « don de Dieu », ou le fait d’avoir la danse « dans le sang », les danseurs de sabar, au Sénégal, prétendent avoir fait carrière sans passer par des apprentissages, tout en revendiquant plus tard d’avoir eu accès à certaines formations ou stages. En Afrique de l’Ouest, les usages du champ lexical de la vocation, très opérant dans le milieu artistique, se distinguent des usages français (en particulier à travers les apprentissages lignagers). En effet, les figures d’apprentissage et de transmission ne peuvent être comparées aux pratiques occidentales que nous connaissons. Les formes et les sentiments d’autodidaxie qui sont à l’œuvre sont mis en parallèle avec les structures informelles d’apprentissage.

As an adolescent Hugo Zemp wanted to become a jazz musician, and at the age of 20 entered in a three-year program of percussion at the Conservatory of Basle, his hometown in Switzerland. In 1958, at the age of 21, he travelled to Côte d'Ivoire to experience African percussion. There he met André Schaeffner, the father of French ethnomusicology from the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, and his wife Denise Paulme, professor of anthropology. Seeing Zemp's enthusiasm for African music, they invited him to come to Paris to study. He finished his musical studies and began studying anthropology, linguistic and ethnomusicology in Paris. Conducting his fieldwork between 1961 and 1967 in the Côte d'Ivoire, mostly among the Dan people, Zemp wrote a doctoral thesis that garnered interest among French-and English-speaking ethnomusicologists studying West African music. He also made shorter stays among other peoples to document and record their music, among these the Senufo, whose balafon music impressed him so much that he returned to Côte d'Ivoire forty years after his first encounter to make the four-film series Masters of the Balafon. In 1967 he became researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) at the Ethnomusicology Department of the Musée de l'Homme, in Paris, where he worked until his retirement in 2004. An important event for Zemp's professional life was an encounter with Daniel de Coppet, whose sound recordings from the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands almost let him forget African music for a time! Hugo Zemp started a new fieldwork period in 1969 with a 16mm camera, making all of the mistakes of a beginning filmmaker. Zemp began to find his way into ethnographic filmmaking with the help of friend and ethnographic filmmaker, Jean-Dominique Lajoux, as well as all of the books he could find on documentary filmmaking and the films of Jean Rouch. An esthetic shock was watching Rouch's film Tourou et Bitti, a nine-minute sequence shot on a possession ritual in Niger. This film and the writings of Jean Rouch persuaded him that long takes with a moving camera, and without zooming, could be the ideal strategy for filming music in the field. On his second field trip to the Solomon Islands in 1974, Zemp made the film 'Are'are Music to show the native classification of music, explained by a master musician. With its richness of musical types and the beauty of the polyphonic instrumental and vocal music in the film, it was and still is an important event for ethnomusicologists. Zemp, though, remained unsatisfied with Related Resources Read Hugo Zemp's article, "Filming Music and Looking at Music Films", originally published in Ethnomusicology, Fall 1988.

Knowledge is often likened to weather conditions that pay no heed to national boundaries. This opinion has ledmany African scholars into using the same instruments to gauge issues in African and non-African studies expecting to getsimilar results. In this study, the researchers reveal that dance without music is unthinkable in Nigeria. Using specificexamples and field observations, they reveal that such ideals are of non-African origin, which should not be encouraged tooverlap in a culture with already defined musical functions, roles and characteristics.

Cultural festival is a portrayal of diverse cultural activities of a people, as well as their glamour of monumental merriments, usually with displays of various aspects of the people‟s culture in form of music, dance, dressing, occupation and religion of the people. This is periodically celebrated with the intention of sustaining cultural heritage, activities and development. Cultural festivals are mirrors of a community; they market its values through a celebration that serves as a unifying force which binds the people and their ways of life. In further description, a festival is an event, a communal observable fact, and practice in almost all human cultures. In such events, there are usually a variety of colorful displays of drama, music and dance. In such displays, there exist certain innermost meanings underlying them; the chronological ancestry as well as the involvement of the natives, members of neighboring communities and casual visitors to the event whose presence makes it ...

This paper is an ethnological and anthropological study of Zangbeto among the Ogu (Egun) people of Badagry, in Nigeria. The study utilized survey design approach with emphasis on qualitative method: interview, focus group discussion and key informant investigation. Purposive and convenience sampling procedures under non –probability sampling were used in selecting the study area and respondents who participated in the study (n=40). The data gathered from the field of study were analyzed, using content analysis method. The findings in the study revealed that Zangbeto still remains an effective social machinery of policing and securing the lives and properties in the Badagry community. It also played a prominent role in making peace among the feuding parties in the community and still remains an avenue of social entertainment and cultural display. The study called for the legal backing of Zangbeto as a traditional way of policing and security the lives and properties in this community...

This article discusses the role of male dancers within the Senegalese sabar tradition. The most common context for sabar dancing is social dance events that are dominated by non-professional female dancers. However, since the independence of Senegal in 1960 sabar dancing has also been developed as a stage art in folkloric dance companies known as ballets in West Africa. Later sabar also began to be performed by dancers and dance groups on stage with mbalax bands. Both of these newer forms of sabar dancing take the form of pre-planned choreographies performed by both male and female dancers; but, many of the best known sabar dancers today are men. Developments caused by the professionalisation of sabar dancing and analyses of the changes that have occurred in the style of dancing to emphasise the masculinity of the male dancers as opposed to the ideas of femininity traditionally attached to sabar dancing are discussed.

In this article I revisit the Israeli Eskesta dance troupe (Baum 2001), examining its cultural modes of production and discussing three specific possibilities exhibited in the work: that the group’s combination of African ethnic and European “modern” dance produces a novel “hybridity” of forms  and that this crossing of cultures through artistic form is a mark of Eskesta’s success; that the moved and moving stories of Eskesta embody a notion of critical race theory, utopian in its vision; and that the group’s provenance in Israel inflects their performances, or “messages,” creating a entirely new and significant means of bridging cultural and political divides in the Middle East and beyond.

ABSTRACT

Over the years, African ritual dances have been castigated as relics of our die-hard evil traditions. This is because people are either too scared or impatient to look deeply into these so-called devilish dances in order to ascertain what they really entail. African ritual dance which is mainly an offshoot of the traditional religion of our fathers, has suffered a major setback due to the advent of foreign religions - Christianity and Islam. There is no gainsaying the fact that, African dance; an esoteric art, is an embodiment of the totality of the African way of life. The aim of this paper therefore; using Oyarore Salt festival of the Alagon Keana people as a yardstick, is to create a new awareness for African ritual dances and also to highlight the numerous positive roles of ritual dance in the African society. This study collates its data using the Participant-observer method, in addition to several unstructured one-on-one interactions with some Alagon Keana elders who are considered to be custodians of the Alago culture. This study finds that Oyarore festival; especially its dance content, is indeed crucial to the well-being of the Keana people.

Culture is a major instrument for identifying a people. Over time, Nigeria"s diverse cultures have been celebrated with fun-fare and pageantry for tourism carnivals. The management process of such cultural celebrations becomes worthy of study. The concept of Cultural management is basically out to examine the influence of administration on a culturally-based festival like the Abuja carnival. The idea is to examine the past visions of the Carnival in comparison with the present challenges with the view of clearly solving such problems to ensure a more globally accepted product. The study employs the deductive and analytical methods of research to investigate the concept of Cultural management in Abuja Carnival. In the deductive method, we derive some vital information relevant to the study through interviews with some Artistic directors of the Abuja carnival. For the analytical method, we assess the cultural management through the review of related literatures, magazines and performance brochures. Among others, the study reveals that Abuja Carnival suffers serious funding challenge from its major sponsor which is the federal government of Nigeria. Also, despite having the same preparatory process, the approaches of the studied directors vary according to their perception of what a carnival should be which does not maintain the overall vision of the carnival. It also came to the fore that certain external factors such as national security challenge contribute to the factors militating against the targeted increase in foreign troupe participation in the Carnival. The study concludes that Abuja carnival have increased private sector sponsorship which will lessen the bureaucratic challenge from the major sponsor. Furthermore, private-sector driven sponsorship will accommodate healthy competition and encourage better result in revenue generation among others.

Orósùn in Ìdànrè, is observed to be a special traditional festival in Ondo State, Nigeria, which annually brings about positive changes in the lives of the people. The festival, which is richly endowed with dance and multifarious entertainment nuances largely, attracts people of various tones and shades because of its positive impact on them and the society at large on annual basis. In view of this, the study, through observatory method of research, believes that, if carefully harnessed, the therapeutic tendencies of dances in the festival are capable of facilitating various changes being envisaged in the society.

Cet article s’intéresse à différentes conceptions et expériences de la liberté qui se manifestent autour de l’enseignement des danses africaines en Europe, plus précisément autour de la danse sénégalaise sabar. Alors que les danses africaines sont fréquemment promues comme un vecteur de « libération » de soi, en lien avec des stéréotypes exotisants sur l’Afrique, l’ethnographie des situations d’enseignement du sabar révèle que ces visions font l’objet de critiques, et qu’une réforme des pédagogies et des regards sur l’autre s’opère aussi dans ces cours, notamment autour de l’enseignement du « jeu » musico-chorégraphique du sabar. Passant par des malentendus et des déconvenues, l’apprentissage des codes d’improvisation du sabar donne parfois lieu à quelques fugaces instants de conversation chorégraphique réussie entre élèves et musiciens, et à des pratiques de liberté reposant un alignement fragile des codes et des émotions des participants.

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In Australia, Dance is one subject in the National Arts Curriculum for early childhood and primary education. In many schools, dance is taught for the minimum time necessary to satisfy the system requirements of a summative grade that can be included in midyear or yearly reports. A qualitative study of the nature of dance education in two primary schools, collected data from video, observation, interviews with teachers and focus group discussions with children showed evidence of holistic learning achieved through Dance. In this paper, data are researched to look for evidence of the meanings that teachers and children attach to assessment in the context of dance education. Following an examination of various definitions of assessment, this paper looks at the relationship between pedagogy and assessment in general and in relation to Dance education. Pedagogy and assessment in Dance education will be unpacked using a socio-kin-aesthetic perspective and drawing on literature and findings from this qualitative study, 're-packaged' to present an approach to assessing dance intended to be useful to generalist classroom teachers.

Man—Being, split. Living in two currents. Essential self cut off from social person. Essence is not so hard to sense—it is the body, its
sensations, impulses, feelings. But we constantly lose this inner contact in outer pulls: projects, people, ideas, duties, place, pride, things. Anyone who attempts inner work discovers this. It can become a burning question. If not, nothing will change. “Theater”—in all its many forms—has long been a vehicle for exposing, for intensifying, this aporia.

Through reports and historical sources both written and iconic, the essay intends to dwell on the particular attention paid to the topics of African dance and music in the colonial imagination, with specific interest in the Italian context in the period between the two world wars. After an introduction to the theme, which has a certain diffusion starting from the Nineteenth century thanks to the travel literature and the pictorial trend of the Orientalism, the paper proposes a whole of textual excerpts taken from reports and articles, useful for understanding the feature of some performances and the European attitude towards them. A special interest is dedicated to the so-called fantasia, a term variously used to indicate different types of indigenous shows. Following is the presentation of some visual sources, placed in relation to specific descriptions of various kinds of fantasia drawn from the texts of that time. These works of art are created by authors such as Lidio Ajmone, Giuseppe Rondini and Arnaldo Pajella who, for various reasons, between the Twenties and the Thirties of the Twentieth century approach the current of the so-called Colonial Art, that is a direct filiation of the Nineteenth-century Orientalism. Xylographs, drawings, paintings and illustrations for magazines are thus proposed and read not only in their iconographic peculiarities, but also bearing in mind the eurocentric vision related with the subjects they represent.


Il saggio, attraverso testimonianze e fonti d’epoca sia scritte che iconiche, intende soffermarsi sulla particolare attenzione concessa ai temi della danza e della musica africane nell’immaginario coloniale, con specifico riferimento all’ambito italiano nel periodo compreso fra le due guerre mondiali. Dopo un’introduzione al tema, che vede una certa diffusione a partire dall’Ottocento grazie alla letteratura di viaggio e alla corrente pittorica dell’Orientalismo, lo scritto propone un insieme di stralci testuali ripresi da resoconti e articoli, utili per comprendere la particolarità di talune performances e l’atteggiamento europeo nei loro riguardi. Speciale interesse è riservato alla cosiddetta fantasia, termine variamente utilizzato per indicare diverse tipologie di esibizioni indigene. Segue la presentazione di alcune testimonianze visive, poste in relazione a specifiche descrizioni tratte dai testi d’epoca, dedicate proprio a quest’ultimo genere di performance; vengono così proposti e letti nella loro peculiarità iconografica xilografie, disegni, dipinti e illustrazioni per riviste, realizzati da autori come Lidio Ajmone, Giuseppe Rondini ed Arnaldo Pajella, che tra anni Venti e anni Trenta del Novecento, per svariate motivazioni, si avvicinano allo specifico filone della cosiddetta arte coloniale, diretta filiazione dell’Orientalismo ottocentesco.

Indigenous dances in communities that underwent European colonialism and Christianization are currently practiced in environments that still carry colonial legacies. Without formal dance teachers' training programs and frameworks, individuals in postcolonial Africa have leveraged local resources, social experiences, and individual innovation to transform into indigenous dance teachers and decolonize their pedagogies. This article draws on narrative inquiry to critically examine reflections of four teachers of indigenous African dances. It investigates how they have constructed teaching competencies in local communities of dance practice. The analysis shows that the complex contexts of practice, participation and agency in dance activities, and reflections on practices framed pathways for self-guided discovery and formulation of decolonized and decolonizing pedagogic philosophies. The various contexts of practice unveil unique experiences and opportunities that individuals leverage to construct and contextualize dance pedagogies. The article offers perspectives that individuals dance educators and dance education institutions can use to decolonize dance education, dance teacher training, and professional development.

The people of Ugbugbu community assembled at Udaburu village square for the annual alanya dance contest. The square was very wide, surrounded with mango and iroko trees. A shack was at one side of the square and images of gods were rooted to the ground under an Ogbu tree beside it. Different kinds of drums were put under the sun and children were playing around them. Elders from the four villages, their sons and daughters and in-laws congregated at different spots under trees communicating with one another. Majority of the people wore cap and headscarf of red and black colours. People from other communities and well-wishers gathered around their supporters under the trees where the people of their villages assembled. The people of Udaburu congregated under a conglomerate of Iroko trees making merry and cheering one another. The congregation of Udaburu people was more crowded than that of other villages. Their in-laws from different communities and Enugu State gathered around them. Ejike from Enugwu-Ezike in Enugu State who was a son-in-law of the Ede-maalu of Udaburu village chanted in Ibo language, praising the ancestors of his father-in-law. He poured libation on a spot and danced around it with the palm wine cup in his hand. His father-in-law went to meet him and they chanted in Ibo language. 'Oroburu brine e brine e bokinene, inene bogeji gehor. Le eywa bugoywa le eywa charachara,' they chanted. 'Odin-ma,' one of the young men who were approaching them said and turned round himself. People of Ijitigbo were eating, drinking and chanting praises of their gods and epics of their forefathers who were never defeated in any war. One of the young men beat Agogo rhythmically to the tone of the epics. 'Otoroche!' he shouted. Otoroche was one of the most powerful gods of Ijitigbo people. It was brought by their historical mother who hailed from Ubolo-Eke. She was the second wife of the founder of the community. 'Otubi lo ohire eno le eyi, Otubi lo ohire eno le eyi,' one of the Alanya dancers from Ijitigbo chanted. Otubi was a god given to Oriri, a one time winner of best Alanya dancer by his maternal grandmother who hailed from Ehu in Ankpa community. Since his heroic victory, many Alanya dancers adopted Otubi as god of Alanya dance. 'Ohehe wa ka yofu,' one of the Alanya dancers enchanted. Ohehe was a deity in Ijitigbo.

This book locates the philosophy of Ubuntu as the undergirding framework for indigenous dance pedagogies in local communities in Uganda. Through critical examination of the reflections and practices of selected local dance teachers, the volume reveals how issues of inclusion, belonging, and agency are negotiated through a creatively complex interplay between individuality and communality. The analysis frames pedagogies as sites where reflective thought and kinaesthetic practice converge to facilitate ever-evolving individual imagination and community innovations.

Agnes de Mille once wrote: “The truest expression of a people is in their dance & music. Bodies never lie”. This expression accurately describes the concepts captured in this write-up about the Ogu people of Lagos State, Nigeria and their autochthonous culture. The vast majority of the people prior the emergence of modernity and its resultant effect had cultural traits which were distinctive in its conception as well as its expressions. Some of these traits review so much about the people’s life, their worldview, religion, traditional occupation etc., and they may be expressed through the people’s body movements, choreographic pattern, rhythmic accompaniments, clothing, make-up and accessories etc. Akoto dance is one of the many cultural expressions of the Ogu People; the dance reviews the nuances of their culture. The cultural birthmark and the stylistically patterned choreographic movements captured and artistically expressed in the dance signals the existence of the socio-economic, aesthetic, cultural and historic realities of the Ogu people. This “Akoto Dance of the Ogu People of Lagos State: A Socio-Cultural Inquiry” was conducted to evaluate the socio-cultural evidences expressed by the Ogu people in Akoto dance, and to document the dance before it is subjected to complete extinction by the various processes and phases of modernity.

The neo-liberal economic policies, which were instituted in Uganda in the late 1980s, opened up the creative economy centered on urban artistry and cultural innovation. As a result of free flow of global cultural ideas, local inter-ethnic human migration, and movements of dance traditions, urban youth creatives have carved out creative spaces in urban areas to create a metropolitan dance aesthetic, which is neither national or ethnic. This essay will provide a critical reflection of “urban meets traditional” dance workshops as space where urban youth in Kampala city in Uganda have sought to engage their bodies as intersections of complex local ethnic dance traditions and global dance forms such as dancehall, hip-hop, and Afro-house to create a metropolitan aesthetic that is neither national nor ethnic. Urban meets traditional are months dance workshops that are conducted in some venues in the city where the youth learn ethnic dances from local master teachers of these dances. The youth then fuse this dance material with techniques and movements of dance forms such as hip-hop, dancehall and Afro-house to create new kinesthetic fabric as individuals and a community. My deconstruction of this phenomenon will frame the metropolitan aesthetics that emerge from these processes as ‘third space’ (Bhabha 2004, 55-56). I will critically discuss the processes of “urban meets traditional’ workshops and frame them as a framework of re/production through which the youth negotiate local dance traditions and global dance forms to create an embodied aesthetic within the locales of urbanity. I will also examine how the spaces where ‘urban meets traditional’ dance activities take place act as an extension of the embodied aesthetics and urban character.

This article summarizes our deepened understanding of decolonizing research with, for, and by Indigenous peoples and peoples of African descent that emerged from conducting a scoping review of the methodological literature and reflecting on our review process. Although our review identified decolonizing methodologies as a promising approach, we questioned if our scoping review process engaged in decolonizing knowing. To unpack the epistemological tensions between decolonizing knowing and Western ways of doing scoping reviews, we engaged in individual and collective reflective processes-dialoguing with the tensions-moving from individual immersion in the literature to transformative dialogues among the team. In reflecting upon our tensions with the scoping review process, themes that emerged included (a) ontological/epistemological disjunctures, (b) tensions with concepts and language, and (c) relationships with the literature and beyond. This reflexive process provides valuable insight into ways in which review methods might be made a decolonizing research experience.

Gunnuvi community which is found in parts of Lagos, Ogun, Kwara Oyo states. Folktales are basically in group with others like; proverbs, riddles and songs. The study endeavours to look into the situation of folktales in the above mentioned communities to see: what the situation of folktales, in the past and what has become of it in this dispensation? Also we will be considering the implications of the abandonment of this beautiful and educative culture. Then finally, we will make some recommendations that would help to redeem the deplorable situation and preserve this culture for oncoming generation.

In Ugandan schools, traditional dances still occupy a tangential position as compared to core curriculum subjects such as science, mathematics, biology, physics and economics, among others. Emanating from the colonial era, when European missionaries, occupiers and explorers savaged indigenous artistic forms as exceedingly impious (Hanna, 1973) without rational foundations, ostracism of traditional dances has extended into postcolonial pre-primary, primary and tertiary education, where western academic cannons are dominant (Banks, 2010; Dei, 2000; Mabingo, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Mkabela, 2005; Shizha 2008a; Ssekamwa, 1997). According to Jessica Alupo, the Ugandan minister of education and sports, “Music, dance and drama develops students’ skills, fosters innovation and creativity in addition to breaking up boredom from the classroom routine” (cited in New Vision, April 22, 2015). The minister’s remark that the arts help in “breaking up boredom from the classroom routine” reveals that how subordinated these dance courses are to other subjects. Dances are only taught as a cocurricular activity intended for pre-primary, primary and secondary interschool and intraschool festivals, concerts and competitions (Mabingo, 2015a; Nannyonga-Tamusuza, 2003).

Over the years, dances from African cultures have been viewed in the Western world as caricatures of exotic bodies and representations of experiences that are abundant in the natural order of things. Valentino Y. Mudimbe (1988) has defined this otherization and objectification as the invention of Africa. With the continuous mobility of people and constant flow of ideas, teachers of African dances in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand have developed teaching methods that transcend tokenistic exocitization and objectification of these dances. This article examines the reflections of selected teachers on how they utilize particular pedagogical processes when teaching African dances to facilitate civic engagement and understanding. The analysis unveils how the teachers apply pedagogies to allow learners to (a) explore the ontologies and epistemologies of the dances; (b) dissolve stereotypes about the continent of Africa and her people; (c) learn about the African communities and cultures where the dances originate; (d) locate the relevance of the dances to the prevailing global conditions, needs and challenges, and; (e) identify how they can utilize the dance knowledge, experiences, and skills to enhance their individual well-being. The article points the reader to the complex ways through which African dances can be engaged as valid and valuable knowledge to advance responsible global citizenship in this era where intolerance of difference is on the rise.