World Dance Cultures Final Africa

Islamic Influence

11th century arrival of Muslims in Africa.

Portuguese Traders

15th century introduced European influence in Africa.

Triangular Slave Trade

17-19th centuries: 75 million people taken from West Africa to North America, African traditions come to America. Also British colonization and Christian missionaries

Religious Rituals

Dance performed for spiritual and religious purposes. One of the reasons for dance.

Rites of Passage

Ceremonial dances for significant life events, birth, circumcision, marriage, and death. Sometimes mask dance

Ancestor Worship

Dances honoring and connecting with ancestors.

Hunting Dances

Rituals performed to celebrate and manifest successful hunts.

Healing Dances

Catharsis through dance and trance, emotional release,

spiritual cleansing, and physical healing. Also dances to exorcise or placate evil spirits. Dances aimed at physical and spiritual healing.

Calendar Dances

Dances tied to agricultural cycles and events, full moon, harvest, etc.

Celebratory dances

Dances for celebration, birth, wealth etc

Percussive Attack

Music is largely percussion and song. Rhythms and polyrhythms, suspension of the beat.

Talking drum

can say things, give commands to dancers,

pitch of drum can be tuned to the vocal pitch of the tribe. Drum that mimics speech and commands dancers.

Characteristics of the dance

Strong rythm and percussive music. Use of knees and hips. Masks are often used

Polyrhythms

Multiple rhythms played simultaneously in music.

Yoruba Tribe

Tribe from Benin, Togo, and Nigeria. Nomadic people spread across those 3 countries and were targeted during colonization. Tribe specializes in worshipping spirits and ancestors.

Yoruba Worship

believe that spirits the afterworld and that they themselves are descended from god

Orishas

Deities in the Yoruba religion representing forces. Go to the orisas for fertility, rainfall, food, etc, and the Orisas would go to the supreme god to ask for your prayers

Osun

river goddess (Orisha), water, fertility, sexuality, beauty, love, and protector of children, her colors are white and yellow her followers wear them too

Shango

Thunder God/Orisa: Power and strength, anger

Osun and Sango were having an affair

Sango gave her a bunch of beautiful bronze, she took it all down to the bottom of the river

Oriki

Praise Song

Oriki Honoring Osun

"I will not carry the dead baby, I will carry the living ones"

Praying to not have a miscarriage, to bring life

Song women sing to pray to her

Ibeji

The divine twins. Fabled to be the children of Osun

Twins are believed to be magical in Yoruba

Sect of Yoruba called Ibeji

Osun Festival

Annual 12-Day Festival in August. Celebration honoring the river goddess Osun.

- Stilt walkers, Acrobatics

-Many people come who want to become pregnant

- Her grove is in modern day Nigeria

- Puts the goods in a good mood so they'll listen to you

- Bring many offerings for Osun

Ataoja

chief guardian of Osun's grove. Passed down through the lineage, Very well respected, the festival begins at his palace

The Arugba

a virgin, related to the Ataoja. She carries the sacred calabash (filled with different things Osun loves) on her head to the river in the grand finale of the festival. The path she follows must stay exactly the same. She's not allowed to speak and has to keep nuts in her mouth so she won't talk.

Dance of Osun festival

Dance for Osun is very subtle, never chaotic

Slow, flowing, never rushed. Priestesses do gentle swaying dance that reflects Osun's character and they wear white or yellow

Osun's Grove

Participants go to the river carrying Osun's favorite foods and

flowers as offerings to worship her. People dip themselves and their children in the water of the grove similar to baptism

Water is considered sacred.

Egungun Festival

A Yoruba Masquerade of Ancestor Worship, festival for ancestor visitation and worship.

Egungun

When someone inhabits the spirit of an ancestor,

he/she becomes an Egungun. Male form = intended to rebalance and give power back to the community. The Egungun can be called at any time like a police force when communities need support

Egungun costume

very tall, all are unique, can often have a necklace

of monkey skulls to connect the dead + living. Every bit of flesh must be hidden of the Egungun, unique masks, flowing fabrics, fully covered outfits. Hard to see out of the tall, elaborate masks.

Egungun Performance

They emulate the deceased by following their movements, walks, and gestures. One must never touch an Egungun...but the wind from their costume is auspicious

They carry switches to hit the people with to keep them in line. Egungun maskers, who dance, chant and give advice.

Egungun Trance

Channeling the ancestors through movements and gestures, trance to become the fallen spirits. They disguise their voices in a croak.

Egungun Music

a drummer, talking drum gives instruction for the egunguns movement.

Yoruba Cosmology

Death is not the end of life, A man is worth nothing alive, life begins after death with proper burial rights

If the burial isn't performed properly they become unfinished spirits.

Orun

Heaven

Aye

The land of the living

Dogon Tribe

Tribe from Mali, people who lives on Bandigiara cliffs, descendants from Ancient Egyptians.

History of the Dogon tribe

Last people to be colonized and ruled because they lived on very high cliffs to escape slavery/capture from the Fulani tribe. 700 dogan villages in these cliffs.

Lifestyle of Dogon tribe

Simple houses made of clay built into the cliffs, Each doorway has a saying about the family who lives there on it. Farm onions and millet.

Women in Dogon Tribe

Women allowed to leave their husbands. They live in separate houses, wives bring them their meals each day. Sacred masks made out of sight of women. No women in the sacred dance.

Hogons

Chief priests of the village. He lives by himself in the house of the hogon, apart from living with a tortoise. Believed that he is licked clean by the snake god every night. He chooses baby names when the baby is born and decides when to have rituals.

Burial in The Dogon People

First, when someone dies they go onto the roof and shoot into the sky to ward off evil spirits.

Wrap up the deceased in a blue cloth, the men carry them in a ceremony to a communal grave in a cave.

Return the blue death cloth to the family.

Dama Ceremony

A collective funeral ceremony held approximately every 12

years.

- Takes 20 days, need to be done in order for the

deceased to become an ancestor

Dama participants

Starts with only men, the Emna

Dama Preparation

Preparations happen high up by the Hogon's house, fixing and painting the masks, making hibiscus clothes. Prep is long and secretive. Blacksmiths carve the masks; emna make the costumes.

- Blacksmiths are considered magical because they can turn/smelt ore into metal.

The Dama evolution

Became popular through tourism, women and children allowed to watch, became a parade. So popular they created a white archeologist mask in the performance.

Purpose of the Dama Cult dance

done to help the dead pass on to the next life,

builds a supernatural bridge. Also celebrates aspects of life,

fertility, and animals—society is more healthy after a dama. Believed that after the Dama the crops are plentiful and women have a lot of babies.

Dama Masks

Unique masks, several different types—upward of 70, to represent different animals, spirits and ancestors used in the Dama ceremony.

Kanaga mask

square cross, connects heaven and earth

Satimbe Mask

represents ancestors, has sculpture of female

with breasts, worn on top of the dancers head. Honoring fertility and women

Tingetange Mask

dancers on stilts, wear female masks, bras,

and hairstyle of Fulani women (parodying rival tribe.) Is based on a white bird that flies over the village and gives it protection. Performance has a saucy strut

Lewe mask

represents 3 story houses of the Dogon and

connection of heaven and earth, very tall, good luck if it

breaks.

The Sirige, or Lewe

ong tall mask, the snake god.

Dama Performance

A parade through the village of the Emna men in costume, many on stilts, each mask/character has a distinct walk, personality and way of moving. The kanga whips it's head around connecting the point of his hat to the earth in a circle motion.

Wodaabe-Borroro Tribe

One of the first African tribes to convert to islam.

A nomadic sub-group of the Fulani Tribe. From Mali/Niger/Burkina Faso area.

Fulani

derogatory term, means cattle herder

Wodaabe-Borroro culture

"the people of the taboo," value beauty and charm,

believe they are royalty and follow moral codes passed down by ancestors. They Practice polygamy - men have 4 wives, first one must be their cousin

Gerewol Festival

Week-long festival promoting procreation amongst two lineages of Wodaabe. Featuring courtship dances judged by the women.

Yaake Dance

Charm contest judged by women during Gerewol. Hundreds of young men gather to charm 3 childless beautiful young women, men wear yellow facial makeup. They select 3 men based off of their looks, charm and personality.

Yaake Dance Performance

Men dress up and line up next to each

other, men smile constantly. Eye rolls and

fluttering lips attract women, as does

bouncing high on the balls of the feet to

look tall. Subtle waving of the arms.

The Gerewol

Closing dance event at Gerewol festival. The men gather in red face make up, they start the dance at dawn, so the sun comes across their faces in the most beautiful way. They dance until they drop in a competition. Linear movement, stand in a line with a dancing axe, and beads along their feet and arms, percussive movements. Smiling consistently.

Selection of men at The Gerewol

They aren't supposed to look the women in the eyes but try to get their attention with strong facial expressions. Picking of the bull," a male beauty contest. 3 women pick their own favorite "bull" by approaching him and slowly swinging their arms in his direction.

Idile

what a lineage of family is called

Kinds of courtship dances held

The Ruume, The Yaake, and the Gerewol