Dance and internationalization of African Experiences

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!