The Language of African Dance

“Movement is language. In Africa, you’re tested to see how you are, how you move. When I teach a dance class, I can understand more about you than you do.” Pearl Primus.

For the people of Africa, dance is an integral part of everyday life. Dance includes all activities from birth until death. The African people believe in ancestor worship and the communities in which they live are set up on a hierarchy structure. The elderly of the community are highly respected as they carry on the traditions of their ancestors. All the individuals living in the community are believed to have two souls.

The first, an ancestral guardian soul, is associated with the head, the person’s destiny, and the belief in reincarnation. The second soul, the breath, is the vital life force. This soul is responsible for giving the people life enabling them to work. There is third soul, the shadow soul, which serves no function in life but follows the living person around. This soul is thought to that of a dead ancestor. Once the living person dies this shadow soul guides them into the afterworld where, if the person lived a life worthy of rebirth, the shadow soul is reborn and the dead person’s soul is prepared for rebirth by becoming a shadow soul.

The African people use their bodies as instruments to connect to these ancestors who have gone before them. The dancer is able to express all emotions through the dance and they use those emotions to fully express a specific event. This results in a unity of life and dance. The dance is very primal and low to the ground connecting the dancer with the earth, which they believe gives them life.

Some of the basic types of dance movement which are used to make African dance distinct are: the knees are mostly bent with the back hunched over; the feet tend to be in a parallel position; there is a tendency to shift the weight of the body from one foot to another; there is a disconnection of the chest and hips which can move independently while the arms swing back and forth; the trunk of the body is not treated as an immovable, separate entity. African dance utilizes various body parts to tell a story.

African dance forms are strong, virile and vital with a feeling of dynamic thrust and resistance. They are exceedingly controlled, having the power to project the gentle wind or the raging storm. Ranging from the walk and all its variations, the techniques of the African dance embrace the leap, the hop, the skip, the jumps, falls of all descriptions and turns which balance the dancer at the most precarious angles with the ground. But more than any combination of steps, African dance has urgency. The dancer had direction and purpose. The purpose is to communicate. This is why he can assume the proportions of an ant or a giant. For him and for his people, dance is life!

The African people dance for two primary reasons; the dance is either recreational or ritualistic. Recreational dances are informal that can change to accommodate the requirements of the community. Ritualistic types of dance are the classic dances that have been handed down for many generations these include the Egungun festival of the Yorubas and the Adowa of the Asante. The ritualistic dance embodies principles that are important to the society and are performed according to the tradition of the ancestors. The ritualistic dance in this sense is aimed at the realization of a predetermined goal.

Traditional dances are intended to be participatory; the role of performer and audience is interchangeable since both are usually members of the same community. A ritualistic festival can last for several days and integrates multiple elements of dance, music, art, and drama. The timing of these festivals is planned to follow the cycle of nature such as the sowing of crops, the harvest, and the rainy season. The theme of these festivals is the renewal and regeneration of life.

All African dance serves a function whether the dance is for entertainment or recreational purposes; use of physical exercises, exhibition of skills, emotional expression, aesthetic enjoyment, courtship, partner selection, interpersonal communication and cultural continuity. There are war dances, victory dances, marriage dances, and funeral dances, dances for women only, mixed dances, dances for the initiated only, and dances for the youth.

Within the African community everybody dances. There are special dances for certain members of the clan, as previously stated there are dances for women only or men only or the elderly or the young. These individual dances are closely associated with ritualistic rites of passage.

A child becomes a member of a community at his naming ceremony; an adolescent is initiated into the responsibilities of adult life; a woman moves from her paternal home to that of her husband’s family; an elder receives a recognition for his services in the form of a title; a member of the community joins the world of the spirits; at none of these times is an individual left alone to bear the emotions which accompany these critical changes. The members of the community carry him through the crisis with appropriate ceremonies, which contain the emotion of the moments in music, song, and dance.

Though everybody in the community dances, there is a distinction between the trained dancer and a person who “just dances”. A person who “just dances” has picked up dance in childhood by watching and dancing within the community. They have learned the dances that are important to the initiation ceremonies. The person who “just dances” enjoys dancing for the sake of dance and enjoys the feeling of speaking with their bodies.

The professional dancer is one who has been trained from childhood to be a dancer. If a child shows the skills early of grasping the dance language they are apprenticed to a dance master. The dance master is usually the eldest and most powerful dancer in the community. The master teaches in whatever method they feel is best for the child to fully learn all that they need to know. The master’s authority over the child is absolute and unquestioned. It is the dancing masters’ divine duty to pass on in hopes of continuing the values of the community.

Not only must the dancing master teach their protégé the physical aspects of dance they must also teach them about the mind and spirit of dance in order for them to someday become dancing masters. This helps to pass on the knowledge of the culture from one generation to the next.

Like other African cultures, the Yoruba people also use art as a way to reinforce life. Dance is used to ensure social and spiritual harmony and as a medium for self-expression. The Yoruba people are found in West Africa, predominately in Nigeria and Dahomey. Because of the slave trade, the Yoruba culture has spread, in some respect, to Haiti, Brazil, Bahin and the United States.

There are about thirty million Yorubas now living in Nigeria. Because of the influx of Westerner’s to West Africa during the late 1700’s and 1800’s when Africa offered a wide variety of resources sought out by Western traders. One of these resources happened to be African people this resulted in the influence of Western Civilization on the Yoruba people. The politics of colonialism led to the ethnocentric prejudices that these people were subhuman and savages because of their lifestyle.

This notion continued to be thought of as the norm even into the 20th century. Even though Western Civilization has tried to catch up with the Yoruba people they are still able to maintain their traditional beliefs while respecting and worshiping their traditional ancestral religion. If one is to fully understand Yoruba life you must first start by interpreting life in terms of their religion.

The Yoruba culture is based on myth. Just like Christian’s believe in the creation myth so do the Yorubas who also have their own creation myth. The Yoruba believe they originated in the city of Ife, where the earth and human beings were created. The deities, in this version of the myth, had first lived in the sky. Many Yoruba kings claim to be descendants of these earlier deities and to have migrated directly from Ife. This creation myth helps to unite the Yoruba people by giving them a common origin. This also ensures the king’s divine right to rule.