The Francophone wit once noted:
Africa has its feet in the
Neolithic and its head in the thermonuclear age. Where is the body? It is
managing as best it can.
How is the body managing as best it can? To
answer this question, I will hazard a few questions and conjectures. Is the
African body still in the ancestral world sucking the clairvoyant ancestral
breast that once fed it? Is it lying somewhere in the Kalahari or savannah or
Sahara waiting for a Good Samaritan to wake it up? Is it licentiously rotting
on fringes of the global nub? Providentially, all answers to the above
questions point the other way. Putting the current global phenomenon into
perspective can help us locate where the African body is. From the existing worldwide
inclination, it is not lucid that the African body is either in the ancestral
world enjoying the clairvoyant ancestral breast, or is it lying somewhere in
Africa waiting for a Good Samaritan to wake it up.
It is conceivable that the African body is in dance, and dance is the African body – it lives in this body. This African body
is on a global epic, incredibly busy rolling back the carpet of ethnocentrism
(my village is the world; the people of my clan/tribe are my people), and
concurrently opening the gates for cultural universalism (the world beyond my
village is my world; the people of the world are my people; my culture is part
of global culture). The African body is actively purifying the global ocean
with African experience, with dance being the purifier in this internationalization
progression. It is to this universalization of the African experience through
dance that I devote my proceeding discussion.
Dance is the most superlative ambassador that
any community/country can ever have. It penetrates any obstructions, ameliorates
social taxonomy, stitches cross-cultural chinks, and bridges cross-border and
cross-continental demographic crevices.
The most valuable send overseas that Africa has continually had is dance.
Dance has proliferated the African experience. Watching dances from cultures in
Africa is interacting with native African cultures from where the dances
emanate, performing dances from cultures in Africa is embodying the cultural
experiences of the native communities that perform these dances, understanding
dances from cultures in Africa is understanding the native people that perform
them.
The universalization movement of the African
experience through dance started with the African Diasporas. A number of
phenomena have given birth to a wide range of African Diasporas. The Diaspora
of slavery (descendants of the slave ship) was singularly a byproduct of
trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Diaspora of colonialism was a result of
imperial penetration, counter-penetration and assimilation colonial predispositions
that integrated African people and their cultures into the winter temperate.
This was widespread in the Francophone colonies. The Diaspora of African
brutalities came as a result of harsh post-colonial economic, political and
social post-colonial conditions that compelled native Africans to flee their
ancestral territories to seek sanctuary in the northern hemisphere. The
Diaspora of globalization is a result of open, genial, and mutual interface that
has connected the Far East, West, north and the south. All these Diasporas have
intensified cross-oceanic exodus of native Africans to the North, Far East and
West.
One commonality between all these Diasporas
is that they have all carried with them cultural practices (such as dance and
music) to these new areas. It is only cultural practices that do not need
immigration clearance to migrate from one location to another. The Diaspora of slavery
pioneered and perpetuated African dance and music practices in the new
territories, albeit with some alternations. It is discernible in the chapters
of history that the Diaspora of slavery is solely responsible for creation of
jazz, hip-hop, and a number of Caribbean and South American art forms and
cultures, and their ensuing anthropological experiences. Performing or watching
jazz and hip-hop cultural practices is interacting with African experience.
This experience is enveloped in the techniques, style, histories, objective, pasts,
mood, purpose and atmosphere that forms and informs the practice of these art
forms.
The settlement of the Diaspora of slavery into the Americas was not mere
integration of people into these new areas. It marked the advent of
incorporation of cultural practices into the global hodgepodge, and
universalization of the African experience into the global bubble. There are a
number of cases where the Diasporas of colonialism, African brutalities and
globalization have had a strong say in using dance to integrate the African
experience into global configuration. A number of native African communities
and individuals are practicing their cultural musics and dances in the areas
where they settled, hence intermingling with other cultures in these locales.
In rolling back the carpet of
ethnocentricism, the African people have helped the African body use dance to
situate the African experience at the center universal nucleus. Native African performing
artists and groups have made a number of trips to Europe, the Americas and the
Far East to show-case and share dance traditions from different cultures in
Africa. Like the African body that the Francophone wit mused about, native
Africans are not lying somewhere in the Savannah nor Sahara nor Kalahari
waiting for a Good Samaritan to wake them up, neither are they seated
helplessly staring at and enjoying warm rays from the equator. They have taken
matters into their hands, with cultural universalism being on top of their
existential agenda. They are effusively sentient that time for ‘my village is
my world’ is long gone. Just this year (2012) alone, three performing groups:
Children of Uganda, Watoto Children’s choir, and Spirit of Uganda toured the US
for series of dance performances in different States. Through dance, these
native performing groups and other sole artists have been able to let the African
experience infiltrate the global demographic fabric. Dance has kept the fire of
universalization of the African experience burning, the only case where fire
has swept across the entire globe without smoke being seen or felt.
The African ancestors may not have dreamed of
a world with worldwide webs; they may not have visualized life with intense cyberspace
excitement; they may not have envisaged a digitalized age. Terminologies such
as skype, facebook, myspace, google, yahoo etc may not exist in their ancestral
encyclopedia. Certainly, the ancestors do not know how to use ipads, tune
itunes, carry laptops, and charge iphones. But in Africa, we believe that the
ancestors live through the ones living - the dead are still living. The
beginning of life is not the beginning; the end of life is just the beginning. As
the living generation owes much to its ancestry, the ancestral world owes much
to its descendants. Their digital illiteracy notwithstanding, the African
ancestors must be jubilating, wining and dining that their progenies have not
disappointed them.
Native Africans have invaded the internet to share their
dance traditions, they have populated the media with their artistic and cultural voices. A simple click can enable a person in Europe, Asia, or the
Americas to interact with any African experience through dance. As I noted
earlier, watching dances from cultures in Africa is interacting with the
African experience; performing dances from cultures in Africa is embodying
African experiences. Recordings about dances from cultures in Africa are
accessible through a number of cyber channels and other electronic media
outlets, although extra work needs to be done to have more dances published on
these spaces. If internet has narrowed the globe to just a village, then dances
from cultures in Africa have contributed tremendously to the villagization drift
of global communities and experiences.
And that is not all. Dances from cultures in
Africa have claimed a place in the global academic curriculum at college and
other levels of education. Moreover, private studios and arts related
organisations are slowly but steadily importing dances from cultures in Africa
into their institutional frameworks. If education is the mother of knowledge
and experiences, then dances from cultures in Africa have a hatchery in
academic and non-academic establishments that have welcomed these dances aboard
their internal and outreach processes. Native African dance scholars,
educators, performers, researchers and teaching artists have grabbed this
opportunity with both hands with aim to entrench the African experience through
dance education, training, and other scholarly and artistic activities. Again,
these different institutions have become birth places where dance has displayed
its persuasive capability in universalization of the African experience. Studying
of dances from cultures in Africa (whether in academic or non academic setting)
cannot be negated from sowing the seed of globalisation of African
experience. If African is the placenta that feeds the baby (global community)
with food nutrients (African experience), then dance is the umbilical cord that
links the two.
Has universalization of African experience
through dance been a one way proclivity (from Africa to the rest of the world)?
The answer is in the negative. It is abundantly obvious that a number of people
from the winter temperate have crossed the oceans seeking the African
experience through dance. It has been a two-way traffic. Instead of embodying
the African experience away from the African soil, these people have chosen to
engross themselves in the African experience on the African soil, in the midst
of African ancestors. Through a number of programs such as the study abroad programs
and other cultural exchange projects, a number of people from Europe, the
Americas, the Arabica, and the Far East have been hosted in Africa. A case in
point, for example, is the New York University Dance Education study abroad program that has
witnessed students from New York University visit Uganda every January to
learn, share and build global communities through dance and music.
The multiplier and spill-over effect of this alliance
has seen dances from cultures in Uganda claim space in North Eastern and other parts
of the US. The rays of Ugandan dances are penetrating the geographical heart of
North America; the Ugandan experience is repatriated to the American
communities. It is just a matter of time before butterflies from the walls of
New York buildings whisper to us that Kizino, Maggunju, Gaze, Naleyo,
Baakisimba, Agwara,and Kitaguriro are household dances in New York City. My
grandfather always reminded me to taste the food, the music, the language, the
beer, and dances of any community that I visit.
Quite clearly, African visitors have mastered my grandfather’s call. For
how do you visit Africa and you do not dance? In the bodies of these offshore visitors,
learners, researchers, and performers lies the confluence that merges the
African and the global experiences, a nexus where the native experience shakes
hands with the global experience.
Dances from cultures in Africa have intruded
more significantly on the network of global experiences. Like a bride’s father,
dance has held this daughter (African experience) by hand and walked her down
the aisle of globalization. The entire global congregation is touched by this
motif. The African ancestors are jubilating, wining, and dining that their
daughter (Africa) is being led to the altar of cultural and social
universalism. The ensuing age band of Africa has not disenchanted. Dance has switched on all the global lights!
