What Dance Means to a Child in Africa

In African ethnic cultures, dance and music are primarily meant to prepare an individual for life, not for a job or career. A mother produces three babies: the actual baby, music and dance. Before and after a child is born, music and dance act as an umbilical cord that links the child to the environment and people around him/her. Whereas dance practices have considerably changed in urban areas, majority of communities especially in sub-urban and rural areas have preserved and retained authentic aspects of dance practices. In this article, I explore how dance is an integral part of child growth and development, and the implications of this artistic, creative and performative experience to children and the wider community in sub-urban and rural areas.

To begin with, dance is part and partial of each and every stage of human growth and development. a person interacts with dance before they are born until after they pass on (fertility dances, birth dances, children dances, rites of passage dances, wedding dances, ritual dances, religious dances, funeral dances). Dance is the link that connects the emotional, spiritual, mental, social, political, physical, intellectual, affective and philosophical beings that reside in each person. But for dance to play this role in a person’s life, how s/he interfaces with, assimilates, and gets oriented into it plays a key role. For that matter, pre-birth and toddlerhood encounter with dance forms the foundation in which subsequent artistic experiences are anchored.

African mothers are not into the stroller culture.  A child picks the pulse, rhythm, and movement while at the back of the mother or any caretaker.

Before giving birth, expectant mothers are encouraged to participate in music and dance performances. By participating in  performances, an expectant mother invites the unborn child to be a passive participant in the performance. This child gets both music and physical mobility by extension. The baby virtually experiences every moment that its mother produces. This means that at the earliest stages of life, through a child development, a baby is apart of all dancing and drumming that its mother experiences (Nzewi, 1996). The pre-birth artistic encounter gives the baby a glimpse into the world that they later join. Most importantly, artistic and physical activities enable the unborn child to develop physical strength that they later use to participate in their birth. 

This interaction with music and movement continues after the child is born. There is hardly any birth in a typical African setting that is not accompanied by dance. Once a child arrives (is born), they are surrounded by an ocean of music, dance, and rhythm.  Any given day in a baby’s life is spent, for the most part, tied to its mother’s [or any person’s] back by a piece of cloth (Nzewi, 1996). Through lullabies and other songs, the child is encouraged "to learn standing, balancing, and walking" (Nzewi). Among the Baganda people of central Uganda, the song Ttengerere, sirikawo baby, …(name of the child) alitambula ddi, etc. are very common. In all the songs mentioned above, the caretaker sings and the child moves (translates music into movement). The same practice is common in other tribes.

In Africa, children will always create opportunities to play, socialize and develop their artistry.

What is important to note about this practice is that it teaches the child how to interact with the environment inside and around them, how to negotiate rhythm and space, how to interact with other human beings, and how to participate in not only consumption but also production of music and dance. It is at this stage that the child starts on their journey to explore the environment around them. Some songs and dances that children are exposed to relate to work, family history, ethics and morality, compassion, spirituality, endurance, among others.

From this point on, a child is challenged to explore more artistically, socially, physically, and culturally enriching experiences. Because typical African families are extended, the child ventures out through children games, songs and dance to interact with family relatives, and, later, community peers. This encounter demands creative input from a child. The simplicity of this experience depends on how, together, children negotiate their diverse artistic interests, competences, complexities, and orientations.  The creative processes are based on active participation that is required of every member. Creative performances punctuate the activities such as fetching water and firewood, tending to gardens, harvesting, etc., which children are expected to do. Children always enjoy the freedom to create together without interference from adults. The African understanding is that "Freedom is not about being isolated and alone. It is about knowing who you are and understanding the way that you fit in with those around you. It is about trusting those near to you to be a part of you" (Nzewi, 1996).

Children performing dance in South Africa. Patterns like this are common in sub-urban and rural areas in Africa

Through music and dance, a child discovers and forms his/her identity in relation to the communal identity of other people, for “identity is a "negotiated experience" in the sense that it is largely defined by the ways in which the self is experienced while participating in a community of practice and by the ways the self is presented in those communities (Wenger, 1998). Therefore, for an African child “identity is grounded in "community membership. It is relational, and children define themselves relative to others in the community of practice as well as relative to those who do not belong” (Danielewicz, 2001). Dance and music integrate the child into the family, community, clan and tribal culture and practices. It prepares the child for and facilitates their understanding of the earthly, divine and ancestral worlds and universes.

The potency of dance and music in nurturing an African child lies in its ability to invite, encourage, and allow a child to actively participate in production, appreciation, sharing and consumption of artistic experiences. A child’s body acts as a candle from which the flames of music and dance artistry immortally glow. In return, dance and music act as a pillar that prevents a child mind, soul and body from stumbling.

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University

Justine Sacco is not alone.

On December 20, 2013, Justine Sacco, the now-former director of communications at IAC made a tweet on her way to South Africa: “Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” The tweet immediately went viral, causing storm and strong condemnation on social, electronic and in print media. Sacco has since apologized for her reckless ‘joke’. In her statement, she regretted “For being insensitive to this crisis — which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly — and to the millions of people living with the virus.” Sacco’s predicament is testimony that maybe the African gods, spirits and ancestors have said "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".

Sacco’s insensitive tweet represents the longstanding Western characterization that Africa has endured since it first made contact with the Western world. Since pre-colonial period, Africa has had disdainful labels such as dark continent, primitive society, third world, least developed society, and, currently, high risk region, all coined by elements in the West. This western condescending attitude is represented, for example, in Hugh Trevor-Roper’s 1963 remark that “perhaps in the future there will be some African history… But, at present, there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness…and darkness is not a subject of history.” In 1969, Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state, amplified Trevor-Ruper’s statement when he posited thus: “Nothing important can come from the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance.” Even after making such a statement, Kissinger went ahead and won a joint Noble Peace Prize together with Le Duc Tho in 1973.

Sacco’s statement is reflective of the stereotypes that the West has fabricated about Africa. These stereotypical images of Africa are derived from movies such as lion king, and biased and superficially selective media coverage.  For example, for some people in the West, watching The Last King of Scotland, Kony 2012, and War Dance is knowing everything about Uganda. Yet, Uganda does not live in the past. Idi Amin, whom the movie Last King of Scotland is based on was deposed from power in 1979 (before many of us were born). The war in Northern Uganda, which War dance reflects ended in 2005. However, construction of realities about Uganda based on these historical experiences has continued even when conditions have considerably changed.

In some instances, the people who visit Africa only get obsessed with what they perceive as negative/bad experiences to feed their stereotypical sentiments about Africa. To convince their stereotypical friends and family members back home that they have been to “Africa” (they mostly say Africa instead of particular countries in Africa that they have visited), they take photo of bad roads, makeshift houses, homeless people, malnourished children, etc. In their world of imagination, a better Africa does not exist.

Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. An image like this is rarely captured by Western visitors who come to Africa.

This attitude has a lot to do with class struggle than racism. It is about hegemony and supremacy, both fueled by national origin more than race. It is a dangerous form of patriotism where national pride is built around the attitude of looking down upon other societies. I have met none-white people whose perception of Africa is extremely negative and patronizing. The interaction between Africa and the West, in most part, is infested with Africans being treated as kids and listening signposts that need to be lectured to. Before the 2012 elections in Kenya, Johnnie Carson, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs lectured to Kenyans that “choices have consequences”. This is one of the very many cases where the West is presented as noble while Africans are perceived as savages that do not have and cannot find means to mobilize themselves and tackle challenges that affect them. 

For the West to retain relevancy and control over Africa, they have to continuously pander to and present the fabricated images of a helpless/needy, begging Africa. This is clearly reflected in the “Machine Gun Preacher (2011), a fiction film based on the LRA. In the film, a retired alcoholic and drug-using biker from Minnesota comes to Northern Uganda and South Sudan upon converting to Christianity. He finds the children under constant attack from the LRA and becomes the hero who leads armed raids to rescue them.” (Mwenda, 2012). The impression created in this film is that a Western retired alcoholic and drug-using biker is much more effective and efficient than trained members of any African military force.

As Steve Biko once noted, “One of the most difficult things to do these days is to talk with authority on anything to do with African culture [politics, economics, social issues]. Somehow Africans are not expected to have any deep understanding of their own culture or even of themselves. Other people have become authorities on all aspects of African life ... There is so much confusion sown, not only among casual non-African readers, but even among Africans themselves, that perhaps a sincere attempt should be made at emphasizing the authentic cultural aspects of the African people by Africans themselves.” This common consciousness that is cultivated in the West is getting deeply entrenched in Africa that for every problem on our (African) continent, a solution must be sought from the West (Mwenda, 2012).

Some continental Africans are squarely culpable for lending credence to this Western characterization of Africa. Executives, economists, artists, politicians, religious leaders, social workers, policy makers, researchers etc crisscross European and North American cities and boardrooms to market trauma, hunger, wars, malnourishment, AIDS, in exchange for handouts. The elites that stay home preoccupy themselves with founding non-governmental organisations and writing project proposals to attract donations from the West. The level of  dependency and “donorism” (as president Museveni calls it) has reached an alarming, self-defeatist, and appalling stage. Moreover, this money rarely reaches its proposed recipients.

Justine Sacco’s words are spoken everyday, by so many people, in so many different ways/versions. This is what we (African immigrants) are bombarded with in our day-to-day interaction with people in West and the Western media. It is time for Africans and non-Africans to come out and challenge this Western characterization that is symptomatic of deeply seated hegemony, "orientalism" (Said 1978), “alterity” (Mudimbe, 2013), and “orientalization and otherization of Africa” (Mazrui, 2005).  The African gods, spirits and ancestors are singing  "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" Let's all respond in chorus!

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University

Is Africa's Academy African Enough?

Formal education was introduced to Africa with the advent of European colonialism. The purported objective was to build capacity, advance skills and competencies, and widen the knowledge base of native Africans to enable them adeptly partake in and own development processes in their communities. During the colonial period, education focus was put on governance and administration, education, theology, medicine, law, agricultures, and technical education as the key pillars of development.

Years after independence, this Eurocentric education paradigm has not changed much.  The content (what is taught) and pedagogy (how students are taught) has remained the same - Western. Attempts to to de-colonize the African academy are yet to yield recognizable results. Ali A. Mazrui, captures this well by when he posits thus: “Western influence is expressed through another African institution— the university. The university is an analogue to a multinational corporation: born as an extension of a metropolitan university whose direction and instructions come from a European country, the African university continues to serve other than African interests. African educational institutions help produce Westernized or semi-Westernized manpower for the commercial firms and Western values and tastes, thus expanding a culturally-relevant market for Western goods.” The situation that Mazrui alludes to is also detectable at pre-primary, primary, secondary and other tertiary levels of education.  

The school has remained alien to the indigenous African experience. I remember facing this dilemma when I was attending school in rural Uganda. What I was taught at school was remotely linked to the daily experiences that I interacted with at home and in my community. The school curriculum never encompassed local music, dances, folklore, theology, cultural and social values, technology, games and sports, oral literature, history, language, art, and practical skills of production in areas such as agriculture, cottage industries, mining, etc. Instead, emphasis was laid on Western history, theology, geography, civilization, politics, and economics, to mention but the most obvious. Sadly, the curriculum is still the same.

Students attending a class in one of the schools in Uganda

One of the key areas in which the African academy is clearly delinked from the native knowledge bases and structures is the languages used as medium if communication. The medium of information delivery in schools in Francophone and Anglophone countries is French and English, respectively. One might argue that application of these languages has facilitated the integration of the African academy in the global education system, but as Ngugi Wa Thiogo has noted, ‘we (African people) still collect intellectual items and put them in European language museums and archives and people have to dig into those languages in order to access knowledge about ourselves. Our knowledge of Africa is largely filtered through European languages and their vocabulary. Is it not time that our scholarship stopped finding legitimacy in European languages…?’ This intellectual enslavement through languages and other forms has undermined capacity by native people to develop local knowledge. 

Suffice it to note that the process of learning leads to a process of unlearning.  Since language influences interpretation, generation, dissection, development, survival, dissemination and application of knowledge, the western paradigm of education (that centers around western content, pedagogy, and languages) on which the African academy is founded has disengaged the African teacher, student, scholar, academic, and researcher from the African realities. To this end, African knowledge, actualities, and experiences are lost in translation as a result of learning and teaching through the lens of European education and literary prototype.

Consequently, the African education system has produced graduates who cannot suitably serve in their own social, cultural, political and economic environments and contexts. This alienation of the African graduate from his/her local existential realities has rendered western formal education less effective in terms of generating relevant human resources to solve local challenges.

Developing local knowledge will increase Africa’s comparative advantage in the global market. This can only be achieved if there is change in the education criteria, introduce narratives that will exude the indigenous experience and knowledge structures and mechanisms, and stimulate locally oriented productivity. This shift should begin with Africans reclaiming confidence in their own indigenous knowledge and its ability to transform their lives locally.

This tale should prompt a shift in intellectual thinking, and education paradigm and approach. New pedagogic models need to be developed to facilitate a process that would equip graduates with skills, knowledge and competences that are responsive to local conditions and needs. The African academy is yearning for African identity; it needs to be de-Europeanized. Stakeholders such as teachers, policy makers, civil society organizations, local leaders, education administrators, school inspectors, students and curriculum developers need to engage in discourses to identify and draw a roadmap aimed at indigenization process of the academy. This paradigm shift in education system will render formal education much more relevant to the local realities, environment, needs and conditions.

Of Ecology, Technology and the ‘Dancartistic’ gap between the West and the South.

It is not only oceans that separate the South (Africa) from the West (Europe and North America). Ecology and technology define the disproportions in dance practice between the West  and the South. The disparities in the way dance is appreciated, packaged, created, documented, shared, preserved, and disseminated in the West and South are obvious. The thesis of my previous article titled “Atlantic divide: Comparison between Dance Practices in the Winter Temperate and African Tropics” was engraved in the premise that the differences in dance practices between the West and South are consequences of the social and economic development gap between these two societies. The socialistic tendencies in the South translate into the participatory nature of dance practices while the presentational nature of dance practices in the Northern hemisphere is intimately linked to the capitalistic taste in this society.

In his book titled ‘The Africans: A Triple Heritage’, Ali A. Mazrui correlates speedy development of capitalism in the West and its slow development in the South to ecological disparities between the South and the West. He notes that the ecological fluctuations in the West accelerated the development and eventual spread of capitalism as a system of world order. The seasons encouraged efficiency and urgency in production and consumption of goods and services. A close look at the discrepancies in dance artistry between the South and the West reveals that both ecology and technology are responsible for this gap. It is to this role of ecology and technology in defining this ‘dancartistic’ gap that I devote the proceeding text of this article.

The more information technology advancement simplifies life the more it divorces wo/man from his/her intimate relationship with nature. In the West, dance production, preservation, dissemination and consumption has been ‘itunized’, ‘iphonized’, ‘ipodized’, ‘ihomized’, and ‘ipadized’. The ipads, computers, iphones and television screens feed the eyes with images, while the headsets serve the ears with accompanying sound. The over ‘technologization’ of ‘dancartistry’ has reduced a reasonable number of people in the West to just mere consumers of dance as opposed to producers. Technology can advance production but it can also facilitate utter consumption. Natural creativity and artistic confidence is lost in technological tastes and innovations. People have embraced technological abundance at the expense of human artistic creativity.

The Western society is witnessing very rapid metamorphosis in the way people interact with dance, thanks to technology. The medium of interacting with and accessing dance is rapidly evolving from open physical contact and access in theatres and other spaces to access through digitalized electronic media. Many people ‘attend’ youtube performances by just a simple click than those that can be found in theatres. Presentational performance of dance has moved to high fidelity and nature has been negated from this ‘dancartistic’ experience and creative processes.

In the South, nature still determines how, when, where, and why man creates art. ‘Dancartistry’ is deeply anchored in wo/man’s interaction with nature. Technology has not permeated this society to dislocate this artistic framework. To a typical African, close interaction with nature is paramount, as nearness to nature is considered dear. Children will listen to birds and create music out of these sounds, members of the tribe will preserve some tree species to make music instruments, brave men will counter lions and other wild animals and birds, learn their movement behaviours and create dances out of these encounters, children will collect materials from the surrounding environs to create art. As my neighbour’s child in New York City listens to music on an ipod as they go to the store for shopping, my cousin who resides deep in Mbuukiro, Uganda will branch off to the bush, pick a stalk of paw paw (papaya) leaf, make a kazoo, and play it to create music to spice up his/her journey to the market. As a Wall Street executive listens to ‘ipodized’ and ‘headsetized’ music, a farmer in Yei, South Sudan will compose songs and movements to accompany his/her harvesting activities.  Every ecological experience in life is capable of midwifing artistic wonders. As Charles Onyango-Obbo righty posited:

"I spent two days in the countryside in eastern Uganda shortly after the fall of Goma. I woke up about 4am on the first morning there. There were many cocks crowing loudly and insistently, and cows mooing in the village. All sorts of birds were singing, but there was harmony in the cacophony. These are some of the sources of African rhythm, the sounds from which the African slaves who were taken to North America created jazz music. If you take Africans, especially peasants, away from these sounds and surroundings, several things happen. They can become disoriented, fall apart, and despair"

Nature is the womb that constantly gives birth to ‘dancartistry’. Dance is the mediator that reconciles wo/man and nature. Nature invites Africans to be simultaneous producers and consumers of their own art. It tickles and irrigates creativity. Humanity is promoted through dance, artistry resides in every wo/man, nature is preserved through dance, and dance is stored in nature. Orientation towards the earth that is common in performance of dances from cultures in Africa is meant to underscore this intimate relationship between wo/man and nature. In the absence of advanced technology in the African artistic experience, nature fills the void.

Performance of dances from cultures in Africa takes place in open spaces to bring wo/man closer to   wo/man and nature.

Perhaps, the area where ecological differences have pronounced themselves is the spaces where dance performances are held. Kariamu Welsh (2004) has noted: "The perception of one's environment and its relationship with nature is an important part of an aesthetic" (p. 20). The invention of indoor theatres in the West can be linked to ecological imbalances. Seasonal changes dictated that during winter performances could not be staged outdoor. Again, we see ecology determining when, where and how wo/man interacts with dance. In the South where ecological imbalances are not extreme, dance performances happen in open spaces, and at any time. This practice is meant to facilitate accessibility and participation by members of the community, build a sense of community and togetherness, publicize community based performances, and bring performers close to nature. The all-year-round convenient weather allows for this dance performance practice to flourish and survive. The more the African people are near to nature the less they need technology for dance creativity.

In the west, technology is clear, near and dear. In the South, nature is clear, near and dear. The aesthetic and artistic dance composition in these two societies is deeply rooted in how technology and ecology is interfacing with wo/man to determine the creative experience.