Invented Dances, Or, How Nigerian Musicians Sculpt the Body Politic (original) (raw)
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Introduction: Dance in Africa and Beyond: Creativity and Identity in a Globalized World
Critical African Studies 11(1), pp. 1-9, 2019
In this introduction to the special issue on dance in Africa and beyond, we review the anthropological study of dance in Africa since the 1920s and introduce the seven contributions, organized around the key themes of transformed identities (both contemporary and historical), decoloniality, new media, morality, and the problematic representations of African diasporic identities in contemporary Europe. With this special issue, we argue that the study of dance and music provides an important window into the myriad creative ways in which people in Africa and in the African diaspora deal with problematic situations, generate new artistic forms, engage with questions of ethics, and carve out spaces in which they experiment with novelty and reinvigorate their lives.
Theorizing ‘Africanness’: Why ‘African Dance’ is not ‘African Dance’
Academic and intellectual discourses are still riddled with dualism. African dances are no stranger to this polarity. African dance, homogenizing as it sounds, has been widely applied to define, characterize, theorize, claim, and brand a miscellany of dances from different cultures in Uganda. In this talk, I will deconstruct “African dance” as an imaginary concept, which derives homage in western ethnocentrism. It is the concern of this presentation to reveal dance from Africa for what they are: varied, culturally specific, demographically contextualized, and geographically confined. In inverting this conventionally embraced concept, I lean on Edward Said’s theory of orientalism to advance the view that fabricating artistic homogeneity about African dances is not only intellectually and academically problematic, but it also raised questions about representation and appropriation of dance forms from Africa.
Adjusting to Change: Reclaiming the Indigenous Dance Space in Contemporary Nigeria
JOTAMS, 2017
Colonialism resulted in the twist in the fortunes of indigenous dancing through its revolutionary ideologies like evangelization, islamization, formal education, and capitalism among others. These colonial ideals, signaling the modern period in Nigeria resulted in the extinction of certain indigenous dances, adulteration of the functionality in several others, and the downturn in the patronage, which indigenous performances enjoyed within the traditional dance space. Alien dance forms have invaded the indigenous theatre spaces wherein revival and reclamation have headlined major scholarly work on indigenous theatres since the modern period. This study using the case study and content analysis approach of the qualitative research method draws from the theory of postmodernism and Formalism to investigate the challenges faced within the Nigerian indigenous dance space with focus on evolving strategies and techniques for reclaiming the Nigerian indigenous dance space. It concluded that both the indigenous Nigerian dancer and choreographer should move beyond the rigid pre-colonial philosophical and performance limitations of the indigenous dance form to carve a new aesthetic identity for Nigerian indigenous dance art. An aesthetic brand that can favorably compete with these alien forms, meet entertainment needs of contemporary audience and debunk demeaning ideas of indigenous dancing as fetish, mundane and incapable of meeting today's aesthetic demands. To do this, this paper recommended that the indigenous dances should be disrobed off their ritualistic contents, exposed to contemporary innovations, blended with the aesthetic and movement patterns of other dance forms rather than complain about their origins and collaborate with the media to project the new face of indigenous dance art that emerges from this experiment.
International Journal of Research in Education Humanities and Commerce, 2021
The uniqueness of dance as an art form is that of all art forms, it is totally dependent on human body movement. The human body is the sole instrument or vehicle for expression in dance. One of the major problems of dance is its non-verbal channel of communication which sometimes seems codified and difficult to understand by merely watching or observing. Predominantly, our present society does not really have that critical mind to clearly understand what a dancer is trying to depict through dance. Most people always concentrate more on the dance movement and choreography. This research paper shall lend itself to the historical approach as a theoretical tool for evaluating Felix Akinsipe's "United We Stand" beyond the work itself to the broader historical and cultural event. This study surpasses an attempt to write about dance, it is to shed light on the importance of dance and how it can be used to educate and inform people in society. However, this study will also give room for intellectual discourse about dance, its socio-political relevance in society, and how Felix Akinsipe's "United We Stand" in Talking Bodies reflects the Nigerian situation under the colonial/military regime. In the course of the paper, a qualitative method of gathering data was adopted in processing the libretto and performance under review. This paper thereby concludes by illuminating the responsibility of theatre artists towards being the voice of the voiceless via their works and then recommends that choreographers must strive to commit their works in speaking for the voiceless against oppressive governance.
2019
A border can be perceived as a boundary. Whether it is ideological, visual, or emotional, the border emphasizes a division. Some borders unforgivingly prohibit passage to the other side, relegating, in the case of ideology or praxis, two phenomena to retain their separateness. Fortunately, time and again, Africana dance, ideology, and praxis has proven to be comparable to a bulldozer crushing a wall with regard to the ineffectiveness of restriction on this dance form. Africana dance cannot be constrained. The Africana dance form Hip Hop, and the culture that accompanies it, is a case in point. Hip-hop dance has become a global phenomenon, or a boundary crusher. Its practice can be witnessed on the internet in Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and its birthplace, the United States. Hip-hop emerged as a result of the experiences of people of African descent in America. However, the narratives that it conveys cannot be contained within the borders of America because they are familiar to people of African descent in all areas of the globe. Borders have historically been a nonfactor with regard to the proliferation, application, and praxis of Africana dance specifically, and Africana performance arts in general.
Dance and content issues: implications for contemporary indigenous dance in Nigeria
EJOTMAS: Ekpoma Journal of Theatre and Media Arts, 2020
Many traditional dances have witnessed downturn in patronage to occasion academic debates geared towards reviving interest in indigenous performances and live theatres in Nigeria. It is within this context that this article closely look at content issues in Nigerian indigenous dance from a diachronic perspective and observed that the seeming dwindling patronage for certain Nigerian indigenous dances is as a result of the inability of indigenous dance creators and performers to package indigenous dance products to reflect popular tastes in contemporary times. Also, it is observed that content issues in art are indicators that human society is constantly in a state of flux and that as humanity responds to these changing realities; art must do the same to remain relevant to the society within a particular period. Drawing on this, the study concludes that Nigerian indigenous dance space could be enlivened when its contents are at par with dominant societal realities and respond to preva...
REPOSITIONING INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN DANCES FOR THE CHALLENGES OF THE POSTMODERN NIGERIAN SOCIETY
THESIS, 2016
What remains unchanged about dance in the world today is the fact that dance has come to stay with all its functions in society and that the society will continue to navigate the aesthetics, functional appeal and approach of the art of dance. Dance in pre-colonial Africa have a communal appeal that govern its composition, aesthetics and functional appreciation, which took a different shape in the colonial and modern period with its attendant philosophies and modernization mantra. The alien dance forms introduced since the colonial period have meddled with the business of indigenous dance culture and have impaired the pre-colonial indigenous aesthetic ideologies so much that some Africans in modernism term indigenous dancing as archaic and fetish. In the period of postmodernism however, the changed audience perception of indigenous dancing have posed great challenges to growth and sustenance of the indigenous dance forms where it becomes necessary to reposition indigenous dance art to appeal to postmodern audience. To do this, the researcher advocates among other strategies that the choreographers and performers of indigenous dances should boldly cut through the aesthetic and functional limitations of the indigenous dance forms, and become open to the aesthetic formations and choreographic standards of other forms while remaining functional in a postmodern world.
‘African Dance’: The Dangers of a Homogenizing Label
International Journal of Education & the Arts, 2022
What is 'African dance'? Is the label 'African dance' representative enough of the diverse dance traditions in African communities, or is it just another form of tokenism? How is the term 'African dance' rooted in the histories of colonial racism against the African people? What are the dangers of using the same label as an attempt at instituting anti-racist curricular and interventions in universities, conservatories, dance studios, and dance companies? In problematizing the label 'African dance', we should be cognizant of the view presented by Stuart Hall (1991) that how people are represented is how they are treated. The article examines how the generalization IJEA Vol. 23 Special Issue 1.2-http://www.ijea.org/v23si1/ 2 reflected in 'African dance' has genealogy in the earlier racist European colonial homogenization of Africa, which Valentino Y. Mudimbe (1988) has termed as the 'invention of Africa'. A critical examination is made on how using the label 'African dance' in the current anti-racist dance curricular projects compound racism that whitewashes a complex continent with multiplicity of cultures and dance practices into one single monolithic label. The article provokes critical reflection on the complexity of dance traditions in Africa and inspires a new thinking that looks at the different insidious facets of racism, which can easily be exacerbated by the very projects that seek to address social injustices, discrimination, and marginalization.
Africanist choreography as cultural citizenship
2020
This essay addresses how Africanist choreography operates as a practice of cultural citizenship, focussing on the work of Thomas 'Talawa' Prestø as a leading figure in shaping the cultural sphere for choreography based on African and diaspora forms in Norway and internationally. Whereas cultural policy discourse tends to value Africanist choreography as a tool for social inclusion, this essay seeks to foreground the philosophical basis of Prestø's work-with a focus on his piece I:Object (2018) and its enactment of ideas of Africana philosophy, heritage and polycentrism. However, rather than focussing exclusively on performance analysis, the essay also emphasises the political importance of the professional work that choreographers like Prestø undertake aside from choreographing-analysing the ways in which he has created a new discursive context for his own practice and the challenge to Eurocentric norms of reception this work enacts. In the introductory chapter of Black Performance Theory (BPT), Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez explore how the thinking about 'black identity and representation' alters from one historical period to another within and between performance tropes (DeFrantz and Gonzalez 2014, p.1). The authors consider the theorisation of 'Africanist aesthetics' by art historian, Robert Farris Thompson (1974) as one of the milestones in the formulation of this scholarly field. Thompson identified a number of traits which encapsulated the 'philosophies of beauty and ethics' in West African dance, which could also be found in African American culture. With this concept of Africanist aesthetics, the authors suggest, emerged 'the possibility to theorise black performance in terms of its own ontologies' (DeFrantz and Gonzalez 2014, p. 4). This category has expanded since Thompson theorised it and as other researchers continue to identify similarities between African and diaspora dances 1 .
Old Wine in New Bottles: Revamping Indigenous Dance Patronage in Contemporary Nigeria
The views of aesthetics in the context of African Indigenous dances have been a dialectic one when taking into consideration the socio-political, religious, and economic changes that have hit the nation since pre-colonial periods to contemporary times. Indeed, dance before now was considered aesthetic only when it has satisfied one communal function or the other for both the 'seen' and 'unseen' audience due to the pre-colonial societal setup of Nigerian communities and their worldviews. Today, certain structures have been put in place that have questioned pre-colonial aesthetic values in dance wherein today's dance performances must appeal first to the eyes before its functionalities. The change put indigenous dance art in a disadvantaged position as contemporary audience view them as archaic and other forms have invaded its space leading to the apathy shown to the art in contemporary times. This research paper adopts the content analysis design of the qualitative research method and hinging on the theory of Postmodernism, investigates the factors that necessitated the change and evolves strategies towards reclaiming audience appeal of indigenous dance art in contemporary Nigeria.