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African Dance: The Continuity of Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Judith Lynne Hanna
Judith Lynne Hanna*
Affiliation:
Fordham University, New York
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Extract

African dance has, in the past, sent some admiring Western poets and artists into ecstasy and many Christian missionaries and other colonialists into a state of horror. “The quintessential aesthetic form” or “the expression of moral turpitude,” respectively, were common verdicts. And frequently, early European observers of African behavior did not consider African dance to be dance, for it was not the familiar classical ballet or foot-tapping folk dance of their home countries. Perceptions and evaluations are now more balanced. We have first-hand reports about African dance by African and other scholars, an extensive survey of old and new literature relevant to African dance, an increasing number of African dance films, and African dance companies that have performed around the world.

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Articles
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Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council , Volume 5 , 1973 , pp. 165 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 By the International Folk Music Council 

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References

Footnotes

1. This article is based on 1963 field work in Africa and a survey conducted over the last decade of the literature relevant to African dance.Google Scholar

2. Hanna, Judith Lynne, “The Status of African Dance Studies,” Africa 36 (1966), 303–307; “African Research Committee Conference on the African Arts: Report of the Dance Group,” African Studies Bulletin 9, No. 3 (1966), 14–18; “African Dance as Human Behavior: A Selected Bibliography,” New York: Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus Institute on African Dance, 1970; Gaskin, L.J.P., A Select Bibliography of Music in Africa, London: International African Institute, 1965.Google Scholar

3. Hanna, Judith Lynne and Hanna, William John, “Nkwa di Iche Iche: Dance-Plays of Ubakala,” Présence Africaine 65, No. 1 (1968), 11–38; Gbeho, Philip, “Music of the Gold Coast,” African Music Society Journal 1, No. 1 (1954), 62–63; Nketia, J.H. Kwabena, “The Interrelations of African Music and Dance,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 17 (1965), 91–101; Increase Coker, “Efik Dances: They're Artistic and Romantic,” Sunday Post, June 9, 1963, pp. 8–9; Gerhard Lindblom, The Akamba, Vol. 17, Uppsala: Archives d'Études Orientales, 2nd ed., 1920; E.E. Evans-Pritchard, “The Dance,” Africa 1 (1928), 436–462; Alan P. Merriam, “The Music of Africa,” Africa Report 7, No. 6 (1962), 15–17, 23; Margaret Read, Children of their Fathers: Growing up among the Ngoni of Nyasaland, New Haven: Yale University Pressz, 1960, pp. 84–85; Robbins, J.H. and Robbins, M.E., “A Note on Turkana Dancing,” Ethnomusicology 15 (1971), 231–235.Google Scholar

4. Hanna, Judith Lynne, “Toward a Cross-Cultural Conceptualization of Dance and Some Correlate Considerations,” Paper prepared for a pre-Congress (IX International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) Research Session on Art and Anthropology: Theory and Method in Comparative Aesthetics, August 28 to 31, 1973, Chicago, to appear in John Blacking, ed., The Performing Arts: Music, Dance, Theatre, The Hague: Mouton, in preparation.Google Scholar

5. Hanna, Judith Lynne, “African Dance As Education,” Impulse 1965: Dance and Education Now, pp. 48–52.Google Scholar

6. Hanna, Judith Lynne, “Africa's New Traditional Dance,” Ethnomusicology 9 (1965), 13–21.Google Scholar

7. Hanna, Judith Lynne and Hanna, William John, “Heartbeat of Uganda,” African Arts 1, No. 3 (1968), 42–45, 85.Google Scholar

8. In the language of contemporary social science, it is functional. See Talcott Parsons, “An Outline of the Social System,” in Parsons, Talcott, Shils, Edward, Naegele, Kaspar D., and Pitts, Jesse R., eds., Theories of Society, I, New York: Free Press, 1961, pp. 30–79.Google Scholar

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14. Dieterlen, Germaine, “Les Cérémonies Soixantenaires du Sigue Chez les Dogon,” Africa 41 (1971), 1–11.Google Scholar

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19. Frazer, op. cit., p. 200.Google Scholar

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23. Marshall, Lorna, “Kung Bushman Religious Beliefs,” Africa 32 (1962), 221–252. “The Medicine Dance of the Kung Bushmen,” Africa 39 (1969), 347–381.Google Scholar

24. Herskovits, Melville J., Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom, Vols. I and II, New York: J.J. Augustin, 1938, pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

25. New York: Random House, 1970; see also Hanna, Judith Lynne, “Thoughts on the Impact of Urbanism on Dance,” paper presented at The Comparative Urban Studies Center, Graduate School of the City University of New York, Roundtable on the Arts in Urban Areas Throughout the World, March 8, 1973.Google Scholar

26. Kenyatta, Jomo, Facing Mt. Kenya, New York: Vintage Books, 1962.Google Scholar

27. Kaduma, Godwin, “They Dance to Progress,” Africa Report 16, No. 9 (1971), 15–17.Google Scholar

28. Chilivumbo, Alifeyo, “Malawi's Lively Art Form: Chiwoda Dancers Mirror their Changing World in a Traditional Frame,” Africa Report 16, No. 7 (1971), 16–18.Google Scholar