Performing arts and change management in syncretized African performances: a study of “Odiiche Dance” (original) (raw)
Related papers
Performing Africa: Remixing Tradition, Theatre, and Culture
Peter Lang, 2007
Performing Africa is a collection of essays on contemporary African performance. From 1992 to 2002, Thomas Riccio worked with several groups in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, West Africa, and Kenya - the Zulu and the !Xuu Bushmen of the Kalahari among them. Performing Africa combines a rare, in-the-field perspective with a keen insight into Africa's transformative and tumultuous confluence of tradition, urbanization, politics, history, and the AIDS crisis. The evolution of tradition and the emergence of dynamic new forms of expression are a matter of practical necessity and survival. An interdisciplinary approach and accessible language make Performing Africa a unique resource for those teaching or interested in the fields of cultural anthropology, sociology, drama therapy, theatre, performance, and African studies.
The deconstruction of the spatio-temporal configuration of the stage and the auditorium which necessitates interactive and communal performativity in most regions of sub-Saharan Africa is a signature imprint of both the pre-colonial and post-colonial dramatic traditions. This paper takes a critical appraisal of the participatory nature of African performance and argues that it is a cul-tural and theatrical enunciation of the ontology of African communalism and philosophy of 'Ubuntu': “I am, because we are, and since we are; therefore I am”. This paper therefore contends that communalism is the epistemic infrastructure that undergirds African performance, philosophical systems, metaphysics and political ideologies. While not projecting an essentialist discourse of African performance identity, it is the submission of this article that the mechanics of the audience in African performance embodies unquestionable homologic patterns. Using the Igbo masquerade theatre in the South-east of Nigeria, and the anansesem story-telling theatre of the Akan-speaking people of Ghana, as well as the post-colonial adaptations of these indigenous performance paradigms, this paper privileges the semiological sense in which communal performance is the cultural version of African religious, philosophical and ideological imperatives.
Cultural Ethos in Traditional African Performances: The Tiv Nyamtswam in Perspective
The entire universe comprises a multiplicity of unique identities, each peculiar to the people who have primordial attribution to them. This peculiar identity which describes the entire way of life of a particular people is called culture. What remains pertinent is that the entire corpus of the culture complex represents the beliefs, norms, values, hopes, aspirations, successes, failures and historicity of the people in context. In Africa, these ethoses are almost always sacred and must be held in high religiosity as their contravention results to one taboo and/or form of disrespect or the other. And almost spontaneously, Africans in their songs, folklores and tales, dances, mimes and pantomimes, which are characteristic of their ceremonies, festivals, religious rites and various kinds of celebrations, respond jubilantly to the reflection of these values. The Nyamtswam of the Tiv people, like every other traditional African performance, also reflects this functionality with regards to the African value system. This paper puts Nyamtswam of the Tiv people of Benue State as a form of traditional African performance in perspective vis-à-vis its parental culture with a view to orchestrating the cultural ethos as it highlights cultural virtues of respect for truth, morality, justice and equity encapsulated in the art form.
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.
Research paper, 2019
What is African in theatre is the culture of the people. The theatre is always a mirror of human existence and theatrical expression is always linked to a specific time and place and culture. Changes in societies generally lead to new forms of dramatic expression. The methodology of this research work is facilitated with information and findings in history, of related literature analyzing Bom Magum dance of Guma local government. The research examines African dances using Bom dance performances and its rudiments highlighting its roles and importance to the socio political, economic and cultural development.
This volume of essays started life as a special issue of Research in African Literatures that we co-edited in 1999. We wish to thank all the contributors whose essays are reprinted in this book and the new contributors who responded positively and in a timely manner to our invitation for articles, in spite of their busy schedules. We also acknowledge the support of Abiola Irele, then editor of Research in African Literatures, for the idea of a special issue on drama and performance and his encouragement throughout the preparation of that issue.
The Changing Audience of Oral Performance in Africa.pdf
Oral performance, as generally known, is dependent on the performer and audience. The audience, until recently, played an active role in traditional oral performances in Africa. This was at a time when the oral performer and the audience held the same belief and cultural system. In whichever way the oral performance manifested itself -in dirges, festivals, naming ceremonies, poetry recitals, or folktales -the performer and the audience mostly merged as one and saw the performance as a communal activity and, therefore, did all there was to ensure its success. The advent of the foreigners who introduced beliefs and cultural systems new to the African has served to disrupt the oral performance which had always been the main form of entertainment, education and moral edification for the Africans. As a result, oral performance in its original rendition has now metamorphosed into hip-hop, rap, and hip-life music. This paper examines those beliefs and cultural systems which have shattered the very foundations of African oral performance. Most importantly, the paper focuses on selected oral performances in Ghana, how their audiences have changed and the reasons for these changes. It concludes that despite the changing nature of the audiences, oral performances are still alive, so the paper ends with suggestions for the way forward to arrest the situation and restore the cultural heritage. It is recommended that African-centred courses be taught throughout the educational levels in such a way as to refute the thinking that only the uncivilized person participates in the oral performances of Africa.