African drumming and dancing
Ebrima Kamara
Abstract -
African drumming and dancing (ADD) improves self-consciousness, reflexivity and heightens attentiveness.
Dance and rhythm are composed of multiple steps in time and space. Learning each beat/dance step
separately focuses attention on specific body parts like the arms, neck, feet and spinal column.
This increases self-consciousness and by extension improves the quality of life.
The meta-theory of the study is Richard Shusterman’s somaeastics -
understanding of the body as formable and a place of “sensory aesthetic appreciation”.
Body, mind and culture constitute the basis of both conscious/unconscious, actions/reactions.
Therefore, to maximize human potential requires increased consciousness of body and feeling.
The basic empirical material is interviews with practitioners of ADD in Sweden.
The study found ADD-exercises engage physically, mentally and emotionally.
Experiences like the feeling of strong commitment or responsiveness cultivated through these drills are
transferable to other areas of daily life such as to improve relationship with family and friends,
coworkers and other social contexts.
Keywords: Self-consciousness, body, soul, culture, drums, dance, experience, mindfulness
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Sent: August 1, 2018 1:25 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African drumming and dancing
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Assensoh, Akwasi B.
Onua Kwabena:
Thank you very much for your thought! In fact, your brief mention of the very useful "tome of works" by University of Ghana/UCLA Emeritus Professor Joseph Hanson (J.H.) Kwabena Nketia -- largely ethno-musicological in content -- reminds me of a very timely book, which confirms your assertion about Emeritus Professor Nketia. In my foreword to Indiana University Visiting Assistant Professor Nana Abena Amoah-Ramey's book, Female Highlife Performers in Ghana: Expression, Resistance, and Advocacy (Lexington Books, 2018), I did recall my trip from the U.S. to Ghana mainly to interview Dr. Nketia at his Accra home in order to learn, first hand, several aspects of his musical output and genius that I was expected to comment on, to an extent, as I endeavored to complete my foreword to the new book.
I am happy to note that, upon its examination, a reader will find out that Dr. Amoah-Ramey's treatise most certainly gives more than adequate epistemological nuance (or sites) to African musical voices, which have been dovetailed by/with extensive Pan-African bibliographic musical/dance and historical sources. I very highly recommend this fine book, which is expertly praised, in blurbs, by two very well-known dance-cum-music (musicology) scholars from Africa, Professors Kwasi Ampene of University of Michigan (author of Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro, Routledge 2005) and Habib Iddrisu of University of Oregon, who is a traditionally-trained dancer and historian from the famous Bizing Family of court historians and musicians of Ghana's Dagamba/Dagomba ethnic group.
Coincidentally, Drs. Ampene, Iddrisu and Amoah-Ramey have had very substantive intellectual relationships, on different occasions, with Emeritus Professor Nketia, whose seminal published works include, The Music of Africa
(Norton, 1974) and African Music in Ghana (Northwestern University Press, 1963).
A.B. Assensoh.
Sent: Thursday, August 2, 2018 4:57 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African drumming and dancing
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Sent: August 3, 2018 10:02 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: kap...@hotmail.com; rig...@yahoo.com; Godwin Ohiwerei; doy...@gmail.com; Nana Amoah; nana lamptey; Dawn; hidd...@uoregon.edu; amp...@umich.edu; and...@southernct.edu; Kanko, Cynthia; Obeng, Samuel Gyasi; Obeng, Cecilia Sem; Ford, T Michael; afaug...@yahoo.com; noahk...@gmail.com; Nana Bema KUMI; ado...@gmail.com
Assensoh, Akwasi B.
Onua Kwabena:
Your assertion about the place of African History and African Studies brings to mind the handling of African History and African Studies on the African continent as well as on Black (or HBCU) campuses in the USA. Back in Africa, many of us, as youngsters,
knew more about European and other non-African history topics than about our own African history. When the ubiquitous West African Examinations Council (WAEC) introduced "picture description" and general paper" as part of some final exams in the 1960s, most
of the photos and topical issues, on which examination questions were based, were drawn from European, North American and Asian sources; I very well remember silk worm being one of the photos!
In fact, when I completed my studies at NYU in order to start my first teaching job in the early 1980s in history and also to direct an honors program (which is now a college) on an HBCU campus in Louisiana, I found out, to my dismay, that we had several topical history classes to teach in the areas of World Civilization, European history, Caribbean history and even Mexican history. I asked the Academic Affairs office why our Black campus did not have a single course in African history. I was immediately summoned to a high-level academic meeting, at which the Academic Affairs Vice-President informed me that major U.S. granting institutions and organizations (serving as funding sources with respect to major grants and fellowships for educational institutions) often frowned on academic programs, which have Black or African History listings on their course syllabuses (or syllabi). Although I insisted and, with support of a few radical Black colleagues, I was able to establish African history courses (including Cross-Atlantic Slavery and Comparative Slavery), I as well bid my time and later left that campus for a larger institution on the West Coast, where I could teach a variety of history courses, including African history and Black Studies courses. That was in the 1980s! Interesting, isn't it?
A.B. Assensoh.
Sent: Friday, August 3, 2018 12:27 PM
To: Assensoh, Akwasi B.; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: rig...@yahoo.com; Godwin Ohiwerei; doy...@gmail.com; Nana Amoah; nana lamptey; Dawn; hidd...@uoregon.edu; amp...@umich.edu; and...@southernct.edu; Kanko, Cynthia; Obeng, Samuel Gyasi; Obeng, Cecilia Sem; Ford, T Michael; afaug...@yahoo.com; noahk...@gmail.com; Nana Bema KUMI; ado...@gmail.com
Cornelius Hamelberg
Edited :
Gossip: Even as a humble connoisseur of modern African Music, I am not that hip to making classical distinctions that no doubt may and do exist between the works of musicologists that are born , partly or wholly home-bred in Africa and those from other parts of the planet who nonetheless have done and are doing seminal work on African music, from its notation to the sociology and anthropology of African music , and that includes all Jazz also known as “the Great African Music”, even if one is inclined to “not privilege Western works over African ones “
What is most memorable about Professor Kwabena Nketia who was the Director of the Institute of African Studies which included dance and drumming and performing arts sections (whilst my Better Half and I were students there, 1970-71) was that he loved his subject so much that he used to smile, while lecturing on African music. He would for instance fondle and lovingly stroke the Gonje he was demonstrably holding in his hand in front of his rapt listeners. ( I have only seen the same kind of love evinced from Mr. Jones, the proprietor of what was once an institution known as Jones Antikvariat, in Stockholm, Sweden. On receiving an antiquated first edition of an out out of print classic , I have seen him lovingly stroke and caress the valuable book cover, and smile loving too when it came to discussing the price....)
No denying that the Oyinbo have done a lot of good work on WORLD MUSIC . Of course, we are not just content with celebrating the likes of Susanne Wenger and her husband Ulli Beier who later on turned his attention to the “last area of darkness” , namely Papua New Guinea, but, still in the area of contemporary West African Music, Professor John Collins, one of Professor Nketia's successors as director of the Institute, has contributed immensely as researcher, performer, recorder and promoter of Contemporary African Music - as indeed has my other friend from a long time ago, John Miller Chernoff ( once a good friend of Fela) he has written about him, but for pure listening pleasure , the most unsurpassed is his collection of recordings of Dagbon Drumming and Akan Drumming
Much can also be said of Francis Bebey
What I have noticed in Europe (Sweden in particular) is that since Jane Fonda started her Workout Exercises for Women and in the intervening years, Aerobics, there has been a n explosion of what's now known as African Dance Courses – in Sweden, promoting traditional African Dance , accompanied by the Djembe beat , as spiritual and physical therapy - and one of the first people to start that in this country, was the late Bedu Annan with his “Grounding “ and then there are all the various types of Gymping courses. ( I once went to an African Dance course being taught by a Swedish lady, who said that she had studied dance in Guinea Conakry – after fifteen minutes of flaying my hands in the air, my arms got tired – as a real African I am more hip oriented....)
Peter Michael Hamel : Music ( The healing power )
Also interesting :
How music affects the brain ( and emotions
How music affects the brain ( Ted Talks
How listening to music affects the brain
What Happens to the brain when one plays a musical instrument
“Forget your troubles and dance!
Forget your sorrows and dance!
Forget your sickness and dance!
Forget your weakness and dance! “
( Bob Marley and The Wailers - Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
On Friday, 3 August 2018 20:46:15 UTC+2, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
Gossip: Even as a humble connoisseur of modern African Music, I am not that hip to making classical distinctions that no doubt may and do exist between the works of musicologists that are born , partly or wholly home-bred in Africa and those from other parts of the planet who nonetheless have done and are doing seminal work on African music, from its notation to the sociology and anthropology of African music , and that includes all jazz also known as the great African Music, even if one is inclined to “not privilege Western works over African ones “
What is most memorable about Professor Kwabena Nketia who was the Director of the Institute of African Studies which including dance and drumming and performing arts sections (whilst my Better Half and I were students there, 1970-7) was that he loved his subject so much that he used to smile, while lecturing on African music. He would for instance fondle and lovingly stroke the Gonje he was demonstrably holding in his hand in front of his rapt listeners. ( I have only seen the same kind of love evinced from Mr. Jones, the proprietor of what was once an institution knowns as Jones Antikvariat, in Stockholm, Sweden. On receiving an antiquated first edition of an out out of print classic , I have seen him lovingly stroke and careless the valuable book cover, and smile loving too when it came to discussing the price....)
No denying that the Oyinbo have done a lot of good work on WORLD MUSIC . Of course, we are not just content with celebrating the likes of Susanne Wenger and her husband Ulli Beier who later on turned his attention to the “last area of darkness” , namely Papua New Guinea, but, still in the area of contemporary West African Music, Professor John Collins, one of Professor Nketia's successors as director of the Institute, has contributed immensely as researcher, performer , recorder and promoter of Contemporary African Music - as indeed has my other friend from a long time ago, John Miller Chernoff ( once a good friend of Fela) has written about him, but for pure listening pleasure , the most unsurpassed is his collection of recordings of Dagbon Drumming and Akan Drumming
What I have noticed in Europe, (Sweden in particular) is that since Jane Fonda started her Workout Exercises for Women and in the intervening years, Aerobics, there has been a n explosion of what's now known as African Dance course – in Sweden, promoting traditional African Dance , accompanied by the Djembe beat , as spiritual and physical therapy - and one of the first people to start that in this country, was the late Bedu Annan with his “ Grounding “ and then there are all the various types of Gymping courses ( I once went to an African Dance course being taught by a Swedish lady, who said that she had studied dance in Guinea Conakry – after fifteen minutes of flaying my hands in the air, my arms got tired – as a real African I am more hip oriented....)
Peter Michael Hamel : Music ( The healing power )
Also interesting : What Happens When the Brain Plays a Musical Instrument ...
listening to music lights up the whole brain -- ScienceDaily
Ebrima Kamara
Thanks for the recommendation.
My work explores the redefinition of African drumming, dancing, and sold as a new inventions. So the only way for me to avoid throwing the baby with the bath-water is to give, where is deem fit, “epistemological sites to African voices.” In the same vein acknowledge ADD as a political project, partly because it is a reaction to colonialism and partly because it is a child of the process of decolonization.
On Thursday, 2 August 2018 23:03:55 UTC+2, Kwabena Parry wrote:
Ebrima Kamara
Thanks for the recommendation.
My work explores the redefinition of African drumming, dancing, and sold as a new inventions. So the only way for me to avoid throwing the baby with the bath-water is to give, where is deem fit, “epistemological sites to African voices.” In the same vein acknowledge ADD as a political project, partly because it is a reaction to colonialism and partly because it is a child of the process of decolonization.
On Thursday, 2 August 2018 23:03:55 UTC+2, Kwabena Parry wrote:
Cornelius Hamelberg
A brief aside. Popular gossip about popular culture and not at all meant to be either highfalutin or “academic” or irrelevant
Preceding the dawning of this very interesting age of African Dance and Drumming in Sweden, was the earlier epoch of spiritual malaise ,when Hindu and Buddhist meditation swept through the West in the 1960s -1990s (a popular culture phenomenon partly generated by the Beatles and their connection with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ; Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (also known as Baba Ram Das) Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels) and his Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics , not to mention Alan Watts and maybe above all Allen Ginsberg and the rest of the Beats ,and, and Tibet's apostle to the West : Trungpa Rinpoche
Whilst all these various jazz and jazz fusions were going on, the psychedelic music (and drugs), the Grateful Dead, the Doors etc. et et , not forgetting ( never forgetting) the reincarnation and evolution of the blues through Jimi Hendrix
There's this synopsis of the whole event : Theodore Roszak's TheMaking of a Counter Culture:Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition
During that age of materialism, a resounding echo of the Hindu spiritual ethic as heard from the gurus : “ Give me your money and I'll give you peace of mind!
Some perspective : Swedish Jazz has been around for a long time
Specifically, the rise of African drumming and dancing in Sweden has to do with the arrival and cultural presence of Africans in Sweden ( a long story) perhaps starting with the arrival of some radical Ghanaians here, preaching, Kwame Nkrumah.
Some of those on the Stockholm drum scene that kick started the whole thing and that I knew personally : Sabu Martinez and the Afro Temple – one of the earliest and greatest - Rebop Kwaku Baah ( Ghana) Hassan Bah ( Guinea Conakry) Marcos Monserrat ( Venezuela) Ahmadu Jah ( Sierra Leone) Soul Brother Melyvn Price ( USA) and it has been a local African presence backed by other events such as reverberations from Dag Hammarskjöld and the still on-going Congo crisis , what was Apartheid South Africa, Swedish missionaries in Ethiopia, Sweden's connection with Tanzania ( one of Sweden's favourite countries during the Olof Palme years) - Malcolm X - in 1964, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace , not to mention Muhammad Ali's rumble in the jungle with George Foreman ( in Kinshasa in 1974, The emergence of Soul Brother Number One : James Brown, Alex Haley's Roots” , Bob Marley and the Wailers, Fela Kuti..
I took a salsa course in ´New York a long time ago but have never been to a dance class in Sweden ( real Africans don't , they go to the gym , if need be and to the dance parlour to move their feet shoulders and hips and to pick up women ) What I notice is that it's mostly ladies who go to these “dance classes” - they want to learn to dance like African women etc. etc. and hopefully meet a nice African guy or two at the course , never mind the mumbo jumbo about consciousness and “ to improve relationship with family and friends,..”
There is of course SACRED DANCE
Cassandra Wilson : Solomon Sang
Cornelius Hamelberg
Two serious omissions; still on the genesis of the Stockholm scene, two good friends : the late Malando Gassama ( Gambia ) and Poe Jatta (Gambia) - still a good friend
And as good friends go, always: jazz
drummer Gilbert
Mathews
Cornelius Hamelberg
Always : Gilbert Mathews (Jazz drummer !
Ebrima Kamara
Should the value of culture/practice, like ADD, be determined by its usefulness or its origin?
ADD has become a metaphor in developing new approaches in education, management-training exedra. The genre exists within purely artistic contexts as well as within contexts outside staged performance. For example, a rehabilitation program for female prisoners in Sweden incorporated ADD to help prisoners recover their self-confidence. A management training company, Sewa Beats (http://www.sewabeats.com), believes drumming allows executives to develop useful skills, such as teamwork, cooperation, creativity and delegation.
These are new functions, in other words the conception of what ADD is has transmuted in the new context.
Is the marginalisation of Africa in the discourse of intellectual property rights due to Western tropes of intellectual property’s inadequacy to grasp the complexity of traditional arts and practices? Cultural products from Africa are not raw materials but finished goods like any artistic and or scientific product. Therefore, should be unlawful for groups and individuals to claim ownership of them within the confines of intellectual property law. I am not aware of any discussion about how to compensate the founder of the djembe-drum, which today is an industrial product known and sold all over the world by multi-national companies in the West – Remo, Yamaha, Tama.
On Saturday, 4 August 2018 20:32:35 UTC+2, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
Cornelius Hamelberg
Of course Sir, having lived and still simultaneously living in both worlds – in this Swedish milieu ( if for a moment you can imagine that) - right now as I'm typing this, I'm listening to Felix Baloy and dancing in my heart. From my point of view, the poetry of music and dance ( poetry in motion) is a quintessential part of my religion.
I am aware of the intrinsic value of dance, the aesthetics, (the body as an aesthetic instrument) so there's the physical, the emotional (feeling) – very important - and in context, for added value there's the social benefits, even if some people (solipsists? isolationists?) prefer to dance alone or to coolly masturbate by themselves, on the dance floor, even when there are plenty of heavenly houris present who want to dance
I'm not so sure that what you are doing is pioneer work per say, whether with regard to the “African Drum and Dance” or any other eclectic constellations of influences. ( Excuse me, I just watched a the CNBC debate “The evolution of change”) but by all means everything – every thing is relevant to this cosmic dance that's still going on, from the molecular and atomic levels of fusion to the cosmic disputations about souls. (In some Sufi groups we attain to wajd ( ecstasy) easily, in my own experience through listening. The dancing - I mean real dancing, comes spontaneously as a result of the wajd....
I have also just taken a look at Professor Harrow's posting by which I intuit that following Patrick Wilmot's proposed trajectory that we ( Africans) must also learn to dance “mathematical rhythms” that with due emphasis on science and technology, soon enough we too will be sending our own monkeys into space - which is not to denigrate our cultural heritage – song, music, hip hop, reggae, basketball, dance AND ALL THAT JAZZ!!!!!
Today we have synthesizers , the electrified banjo ( originally and still an African instrument) the electric Kora and as for jazz drumming who was more African than Elvin Jones?
I'm not sure that I got your point about intellectual property rights: There's nothing stopping you from inventing any new number of instruments and taking out a patent on your inventions, or is there? Magnum Coltrane Price has a bass guitar named after him!
My youngest brother Michael - a show dancer , sadly no longer with us, learned Flamenco dancing in Spain. No denying that just like with Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi , African dance (all styles) jazz dance, jazz ballet etc. all have their therapeutic effects which can be scientifically studied, quantified and successfully marketed as a panacea for all ills, all types of social maladjustment. As you valiantly attest in just the abstract , and I I hereby join your choir by not disputing any of what you say here :
“ African drumming and dancing (ADD) improves self-consciousness, reflexivity and heightens attentiveness...focuses attention on specific body parts like the arms, neck, feet and spinal column. This increases self-consciousness and by extension improves the quality of life... to maximize human potential requires increased consciousness of body and feeling...ADD-exercises engage physically, mentally and emotionally...Experiences like the feeling of strong commitment or responsiveness cultivated through these drills are transferable to other areas of daily life such as to improve relationship with family and friends, coworkers and other social contexts...Keywords: Self-consciousness, body, soul, culture, drums, dance, experience, mindfulness...a rehabilitation program for female prisoners in Sweden incorporated ADD to help prisoners recover their self-confidence. A management training company, Sewa Beats (http://www.sewabeats.com), believes drumming allows executives to develop useful skills, such as teamwork, cooperation, creativity and delegation. “
( I can well imagine the business executives ( yes, in or out of their business suits) developing healthy relationships with liberated female or former female prisoners who have jointly regained their “self” – confidence after a few jazz dance sessions....
Bearing your recommendations in mind, I'm sure that in no time at all e.g. the Swedish Immigration Police and some other public relations workers could benefit immensely by signing up for one your ADD courses, plus some sensitivity training...
My apologies for using the term “mumbo jumbo”. I have been so heavily influenced by Ishmael Reed' s Mumbo Jumbo , that I should hope that I will never misapply it. It is certainly not intended to be coterminous with “gobbledygook” and don't forget that other forms of your ADD have been around for a long time – such as Bedu Annan's “Grounding “. I'm sure that my old friend Mustapha Addy Tetteh in my time, the master drummer for the Ghana's National Dance Troupe must have some similar ideas up his sleeve - apart from cultural tourism ( lots of money in there) you two could have a tête-à-tête, pool some resources ; Africans must UNITE!
Cornelius Hamelberg
This was a hit in 1976 : Ralph Macdonald : The Path
African drumming and dancing is of such value it might even wipe out tribalism and racism on the African continent and other parts of the planet. This could lead to the first annual Global Carnival! In the name of peace and tranquillity they could arrange courses for delegates attending sessions at the UN General Assembly and for the Security Council members, also. Perhaps, somebody would like to market such an inexpensive therapeutic idea to President Donald J Trump and if not, then why not?
Re - “Should the value of culture/practice, like ADD, be determined by its usefulness or its origin? “
Interesting question. Like, “Where do you come from?” Another funny one : “What's in a name?”
Today, no one has a monopoly, today, everyone plays the blues some are even claiming to play the “the African blues” like Ali Farka Toure
Like many of the so called Indian restaurants in London and Stockholm which are in fact really Bangladeshi. The title or brand name ADD ( African Drumming & Dancing) is indeed a very wide or maybe not so wide concept, Africa being such a wide term and a wide continent, from North to South, from Senegal and Mauritania in the West, to Somalia in the East, the varieties of drumming are multifarious, from the Yoruba masters to the Sangoma healers and drummers in South Africa.
The universal throws a wider net, shields the molecular particulars and there's strength (even dignity) in numbers. Hence the joke that “Africa” not France won the last world cup although the French diplomat was quick to point out that their players learned the game of football in La France., not Africa.
When, B'ezrat HaShem, Nigeria wins the world cup in the near future, the headlines will emblazoned in the European media “Africa wins the world cup!” such headlines would not like to accord the whole honour to The Sleeping Giant, but of course, when Brazil wins it's Brazil, not just “South America”. ( It should be interesting to organise a FIFA world cup series on an intercontinental basis : Africa, Asia , South America, North America, Central America & Caribbean, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, the UK plus the EU & the Russian Federation all in the same basket : in all of this there would be immense difficulties in choosing their teams : if it's a matter of the majority carries the vote then in the name of anti-Semitism ( “anti-Zionism”my foot ) the feet of no Israeli Jew will be permitted to “play” for the Middle East. Even Iran and Saudi Arabia would shake hands over this. And as for poor Mezut Özil , he complains bitterly, “ I'm German when we win and “an immigrant” when we lose”
Another example of this : Albert Einstein who said, at the time:
Some relevant specifics:
the therapeutic effects of African dancing and drumming
Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh is teaching the spiritual benefits of drum meditation....
The spiritual value of the daf drum
The daf ( drum
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Sent: August 6, 2018 4:42 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Ebrima Kamara
The globalization discourse is primarily focused on technological development and the new economy and very little about how it affects society.
Re -“Should the value of culture/practice, like ADD, be determined by its usefulness or its origin? “ The value of ADD is not primitivism but the joy it gives. It is a venue where one explores forms of experience outside the scope of subjectivity.
ADD is a source of inspiration in areas like ethnomusicology, dance education, architecture and medicine, just to mention a few. It is precisely this elasticity that makes its adaptation to different places possible – redefined and transformed from its original contextual meaning, for example from a dance and rhythm for marriage ceremonies into rehabilitation of worker in the new context.
I mean “what´s in a name” can change from discursive to practical with time – but does the perception of the name change. Until now the name African drumming and dancing is not only exotic and primitive but has a rhetorical function that draws a demarcation between civilized and uncivilized cultures. Today the phenomenon has gone beyond the rhetoric and utilized in different spheres of everyday reality. Nevertheless, has what´s in the name Africa changed?
The name ADD is in many ways problematic. The term ADD consolidates a generalization, because it is not everybody that dances and plays drums in Africa. As a phenomenon, ADD is as alien and exciting in other parts of Africa as it is for the rest of the world. Secondly, each dance/style has a name; likewise, each drum has a name. However, the usage here denotes a new dance phenomenon. ADD is a "neo-traditional choreographic genre". That draws on West African musical theatre as performed across West Africa, Europe and the United States between the mid-1930s and the late 1960s. Keita Fodéba, from Guinea Conakry, studying at the “Faculty of Law and Economics” in Paris at the time, founded the first African ballet group in 1949, "Les ballets africains" – and toured Europe, Black Africa, United States, Latin America, Australia. Many see him as the innovator and his troupe was composed of artists from the whole of Africa. Lastly, ADD has developed and is developing outside Africa. In addition, the lifeline of the genre is constant dance and drumming trips to Africa.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Ebrima Kamara
“Can we delink culture and social change from technological developments and what you call new economy.” NO and YES – If the idea of discourse is to influence our being in the world. Furthermore, globalization has both material and sociocultural components.
NO – the cultural, social and the technological new economy are the stuff of globalization but in the globalization discuss priority is barely given to the demographics, sociocultural changes. The big fish is still eating the small one regardless globalization. Therefore, we need to look at the material and the sociocultural separately to be able to move from the status quo.
YES – we can delink them to have a better understanding of the new sociocultural configuration in the backyard of globalization. A better understanding of the new context would upgrade our values from imperial to global. Meaning a particular cultural phenomenon understood as primitive 70 or more years ago is, in the era of globalization, not primitive but resourceful. The only way to make such shift in perspective visible is by delinking the sociocultural from the material.
Ebrima Kamara
“Can we delink culture and social change from technological developments and what you call new economy.” NO and YES – If the idea of discourse is to influence our being in the world. Furthermore, globalization has both material and sociocultural components.
NO – the sociocultural and the technological new economy are the stuff of globalization but in the globalization discuss priority is barely given to the demographics and the sociocultural changes. The big fish is still eating the small one regardless globalization. Therefore, we need to look at the material and the sociocultural separately to be able to move on from the status quo.
YES – we can delink them to have a better understanding of the new sociocultural configuration in the backyard of globalization. A better understanding of the new context would upgrade our values from imperial to global. Meaning a particular cultural phenomenon understood as primitive 70 or more years ago is, in the era of globalization, not primitive but ingenious. The only way to make such shift in perspective visible is by delinking the sociocultural and the material.
On Thursday, 9 August 2018 22:34:12 UTC+2, Kwabena Parry wrote:
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Cornelius Hamelberg
Amplifying/ expanding the discussion a little by adding more meat to the bone : West African drums and dance: methods and perspectives by Oscar Pripp
Of relevance : West African Drumming and Dance in North American Universities: An Ethnomusicological Perspective
Ebrima Kamara
Oscar Pripp is an authority in the subject - from the beginning ... I have partnern with him on many levels... thanks