The socio-cultural implications of African music and dance

Abstract

Music is as old as man himself. The origin of music can be looked for in natural phenomena like the songs of the birds, the whirl of the wind, the roll of thunder, the prattling of the rain and the crackling of fire. Through the imitation of these natural phenomena, man came about his music ages ago. Dance on the other hand is patterned and rhythmic body movements, usually performed to music or percussion. Dance is the transformation of ordinary functional and expressive movement into extraordinary movement for extraordinary purposes. Each culture tends to have its own distinctive styles of dance and reasons for dancing. As a
result, dance can reveal much about a people and their way of life.
This paper sets out to discuss the socio-cultural implications of African music and dance. To this end, the paper looks at African music, African dance and human culture, kinds of dance, dance and the human body, dance and the society, the interrelationship between African music and dance, the importance of dance to the society and finally summary and conclusion.