VOCABULARIES IN AFRICAN DANCES: FOCUS ON ANCESTRAL WORSHIP AND FERTILITY DANCES

Abstract

The objective of this research is to compile and document the vocabularies used for communication in the dances indigenous to West Africa. This exercise seeks to provide an alternative to the Euro- American technique called `notation' for the creative benefit of contemporary Choreographers, who must keep expanding their body of vocabularies and who can only be relevant and effective by using the vocabularies that can easily be connected to and decoded by their immediate audience. This study is necessitated by our conviction that creativity and personal statements are central to the art of choreography. We insist that the contemporary West African choreographer must rise beyond a perpetual regurgitation of old dances by creating his own dances, which are relevant to his time and society. However, we equally insist that for reasons of relevance and effective communication, the paralinguistic properties of the old dances should be used as vocabulary. A vocabulary of dance systems, which produce new meanings, is only possible through an examination of the very basis for the production of dances already in existence.


(Humanities Review: 2002 2(1): 30-45)