THEY STOLE OUR DANCE AND MADE IT THEIRS...SEE HOW.

The Africanist Aesthetic in American Dance Forms

by Emily Willette, Smith College
The Africanist Aesthetic and American Dance Forms

The history of globalization and cultural hybridization goes back through time as long as people from different places have been interacting with each other. Through trade of all kinds, people all over the world have been sharing their practices with others and taking in those of others. Since dance embodies many cultural attitudes, it is one way to look at the effects of globalization. Through slavery American dance was influenced by African dance, and in turn the African slaves were influenced by the dances already performed in this country. This can be seen in many dance forms created and altered in the United States.

History

The Africanist Aesthetic, as seen in American dance, is not any particular aesthetic of any one group of people from Africa, but rather is a blend of common elements across many different groups.  According to Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, this blending and creation of an African-American culture came about because of homogenization of slave life.
[1] Since the beginning of slavery in the United States, groups of Africans had been split up. No one group with a common language or cultural practices were kept together, which lead to cultural hybridization even in the early history of slavery.  With the invention of the cotton gin, many plantations that had previously grown indigo or tobacco began to grow cotton because this device made it so much easier to produce. Since almost all slaves were doing the same work, the shared practices were the basis for what Hazzard-Gordon calls, “a fairly stable, homogeneous, dominant cultural variant.”[2] The final force that Hazzard-Gordon cites is the outlaw of the slave trade in the early 1800’s. Since no, or almost no, new slaves were being brought into the United States and the percentage of slaves that were born in the United States was becoming the majority, the people were becoming further and further removed from their home culture with and had no way to recover what had been lost.

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YOUTHS CAPTURE THE LOST ESSENCE OF NIGERIA ON STAGE.

ARA'NBADA : The Torch of Creativity

 Ara`nbada is an event to celebrate the values and richness of Nigerian culture, also to project the rich essence of our culture values. Part of the programme of the event includes: paper presentation/lecture, Dance performance and play premiering of renowned play writers with selected theme as it affect our daily activities for moral cultural development.
Ara`nbada is an event to celebrate the values and richness of Nigerian culture, also to   project the rich essence of our cultural values. FOLLOW LINK.

Stage performance is not a dying culture in Nigeria – Prof. Duro Oni

Prof Duro Oni is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, (Management Services) at the University of Lagos, and a maestro in technical theatre. In this interview with Nwabueze Oge of the Nigeria Spur magazine, he speaks intensively on pertinent issues that affect theatre and film production in Nigeria.  

The Old and the New
It is still the same thing but there is no situation in life that is static, so there will always be changes that are occasioned by several factors in Nigeria theatre. Looking at the Nigerian theatre, the first recorded aspect, started with the Alarinjo theatre, which was part of what transpired among the Yorubas in Oyo. Alarinjo people were constantly on the move while doing their dances and performances. Things have gone from the traditional setting of the theatre among the Yorubas. Among the Igbos, there was also the masquerade theatre, which also thrived very much in the pre-colonial period. Among the Hausas, there was what was commonly referred to as Wasa Kwayo- which is the play making process of theatre READ ON.