The Fundamental Characteristics of African Dance

Index of the fundamental characteristics of African dance and derivatives. Derived from Welsh-Asante's seven characteristics of African dance in "Commonalities in African Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation" (1985).

1. Low to the earth
African cosmology regards the Earth as a benevolent world which sustains them, as compared to the European's place of trial to ascend from. Hence the characteristic of African dance is one which works with gravity, not one which seeks to defy it.

The 'Earth-Centred' Posture
With the ankles just inside one hip-width apart, and the body in a seated posture but inclined forward with knees flexed, this is a root position of West African dance. The posture places the dancer in dynamic equilibrium with gravity: energy from the dancer radiating downwards to the earth is in balance with the energy radiated from the earth upwards.

2. Undulating from the centre outward
(remarks to follow)

3. Polyrhythmic
(remarks to follow)

4. Emphasis on the pelvic girdle
(remarks to follow)

5. Body part isolations
Each body part tells its own story.

"All the elements of the music are displayed clearly in the body and nothing is left out." - Emily Willette (2012)

6. Whole foot touching the ground
(remarks to follow)

"We are the men of dance, whose feet draw new strength pounding the hardened earth." - Léopold Sédar Senghor (1945).

"stamping feet on the ground is a show of extreme joy" - Alphonse Tiérou (2000) 

7. Bent knees
(remarks to follow)

"dancing in a bent-over position with arms folded over the chest is a symbol of initiation" - Alphonse Tiérou (2000)

8. Texture
describes how dance functions as bodily (performative) conversation.

"Tell me how you dance and I'll tell you who you are." - Alphonse Tiérou (2000)

"When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are." - Mikhail Baryshnikov

References

Senghor, Léopold Sédar (1945). Prayer to Masks. In 'Songs of Shadow'. Original text: "Nous sommes les hommes de la danse, dont les pieds reprennent vigueur en frappant le sol dur." See excerpt: http://www.drmalotaibi.com/courses/prayer-to-masks.pdf [Retrieved 08/07/16]

Tiérou, Alphonse (2000). Tell Me How You Dance and I'll Tell You Who You Are. The UNESCO Courier. October 2000, Page 45. See: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001207/120752e.pdf#120774 [Retrieved 08/07/16]

Welsh-Asante, Kariamu (1985). Commonalities in African Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation. In "African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity" edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh-Asante. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Willette, Emily (2012). The Africanist Aesthetic in American Dance Forms. https://sophia.smith.edu/blog/danceglobalization/2012/04/13/the-africanist-aesthetic-in-american-dance-forms/ [Retrieved 18/06/2016]

The Senses of African Dance

Index of the thematic principles which can be found at the core of African dance and derivatives. Derived from Welsh-Asante's seven "senses" of African dance in "Commonalities in African Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation" (1985).

1. Ephebism
(from the Greek 'ephebos' εφηβος referring to the adolescent male)
A youthful energy (not commonly found in European ballet). "Old people dancing with youthful vitality are valued examples of ephebism in Africanist cultures." (Gottschild, 2001.)

2. Polycentrism
Literally meaning "of, or having, many-centres", it is the idea that movement may be initiated from and maintained in any part of the body. Hence the preponderance of body-isolated movement. Polycentrism is a requisite for the embodiment of polyrhythm. Emily Willette (2012) says of African dance, "All the elements of the music are displayed clearly in the body and nothing is left out."

3. Polyrhythm
Dave Atkinson defines polyrhythm as "a combination of two or more rhythms played simultaneously while moving at the same linear tempo". Farris Thompson (1974) describes his experience of the bodily expression of polyrhythm (via polycentrism) thus, “my hands and my feet were to keep time with the gongs, my hips with the first drum, my back and shoulders with the second.”

4. Curvilinearity
"refers to the curved shape, figuring or structuring of artistic products as well as within the positioning of bodies. It’s directly related to two core concepts in African societies: continuity and fertility." (Afreaka, 2013)

5. Dimensionality
Extrasensory feelings and emotions. "Asante's (sic) (1994) dimensionality refers not to "measured dimension" but to "perceived dimension," a "something extra that is present in harmony with the music, dance, or sculpture" (Caponi, 1999).

6. Epic Memory
The dancer draws upon folkloric knowledge and cultural histories to imbue the dance with spiritual and emotional meaning, thereby making a 'universal' (read 'primal') connection with the audience.

7. Holistic Unity (Wholism)
Unity arises out of the circle-solo dance format where there is a communal circle and a soloist leader or couple. Members of the circle: drummers, singers/choristers, dancers-in-waiting, audience members; all participate. Says Welsh-Asante (2010) "Participation is anticipatory and responsive. In order for an event to be successful, everyone must be fully involved. Silence and stillness are not valued in the African performance arena. In fact, to be silent is to be critical in a negative way and shows disdain and contempt for the performance."

8. Repetition
"Most African composition is based on the repetition of a musical unit. It is that repetition that holds together the other musical units of the composition. These other unit are structured with great freedom relative to the first unit, producing their own rhythmic pattern that coincides only occasionally with that of the other units and with the basic pulse. For example, in the mbira music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe, a repeated pattern is established by the interaction of various parts, and the musician develops an improvisation out of this core pattern." ('Music in Africa' 2015)

"Without an organizing principle of repetition, true improvisation would be impossible, as an improviser relies upon the ongoing recurrence of the beat... That the beat is there to pick up does not mean that it must have been metronomic, but merely that it must have been at one point begun and that it must be at any point 'social' - i.e., amenable to re-starting, interruption, or entry by a second or third player or to response by an additional musician." (Snead, James 1981)

References

Afreaka (2013). "Africanist Dance Aesthetics: Societies in Movement". http://www.afreaka.com.br/english/africanist-dance-aesthetics/ [Retrieved 19/06/16]

Atkinson, Dave (????). What is a polyrhythm. http://www.drumlessons.com/drum-lessons/rock-drumming/what-is-a-polyrhythm/ [Retrieved 08/07/2016].

Caponi, Gena Dagel (1999). "Signifyin(g), Sanctifyin' & Slam Dunking: A Reader in African American Expressive Culture" Editor. Amherst : Univeristy of Massachusetts Press.

Farris Thompson, Robert (1974). "African Art in Motion". Los Angeles : University of California Press.

Gottschild, Brenda Dixon (2001). Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance. In "African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas" Edited by Sheila S.Walker. pp.89-103.

'Music of Africa'. In "New World Encyclopedia" (2015)
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Music_of_Africa [Retrieved 16/06/16]

Snead, James (1981). On Repetition in Black Culture. Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 15, No. 4, Black Textual Strategies, Volume 1: Theory (Winter, 1981), pp. 146-154.

Welsh-Asante, Kariamu (1985). Commonalities in African Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation. In "African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity" edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh-Asante. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Welsh-Asante, Kariamu (2010). World of Dance: African Dance, Second Edition. NY : Infobase Publishing

Willette, Emily (2012). The Africanist Aesthetic in American Dance Forms. https://sophia.smith.edu/blog/danceglobalization/2012/04/13/the-africanist-aesthetic-in-american-dance-forms/ [Retrieved 18/06/2016]

Cultural Knowledge

Last Saturday was our Sheffield Parranda Espectacular event in Sheffield. Apart from the hospitality, operational and performance aspects make up the running of a great night, I try to squeeze in a few moments to sound out Solares/The Rueda Academy (STRA) attendees. The way they express themselves, their interpretations of their own learning is richly informative, helping me understand how better to tailor their learning experience.

One of them made an astute observation. When Solares first started, he was under the impression that it was a novel kind of workshop; that there were subcomponents or aspects being trialled which would inform my dance research. And yet after two years of workshops, all the material we'd covered was contained in my rather snazzy salsa website. This snippet, which should be read in a positive tone, was couched within a larger conversation of satisfaction with Solares' direction and modes of delivery. I had the chance to explain later that while "yes" the material was similar, it was the environment and means of delivery that was novel.

When I first elucidated the content elements and hierarchy some fifteen plus years ago, the young women and men whom I trained turned out to be exceptional educators and dancers displaying physical and conceptual skills at the peak of Bloom's taxonomy. Where they were (comparatively) less strong was their fluency with the musical, rhythmic, and cultural domains in Caribbean dance.

In retrospect, it was my naivete in searching for an ideal objective means of dance instruction that was to blame. I had neither the maturity nor the experience associated with the cultural knowledge of salsa to appreciate its value, its necessity as a subjective part. This except from "Spinning Mambo Into Salsa" (2015: 114) by Juliet McMains captures the difference between then and now.

"For Cuban Pete, mambo was not something that could be learned in a dance school. It was cultural knowledge he inherited from his family, dancing in the kitchen with his mother.

"This tension between Latin dance as cultural knowledge that can only be learned through time spent in a particular community versus Latin dance as a technique that can be bought and sold in formal dance classes intensified as the salsa dance industry emerged in the 1990s."

While I am not able to provide the literal environment of growing up and dancing in a kitchen with a Latin American mother like Cuban Pete's, I am interested in whether a surrogate environment may be created where subjective Latin American cultural knowledge may be acquired.

This is the basis of Solares' novelty.

Loo Yeo