On the 4th of April 2019, I attended a music and dance ensemble organized by professor Dr. Kofi Gbolonyo. The performance took place at the Plaza outside the Barnett Recital Hall at 12:00 noon, not only was this venue inspiring, the environment within the room was filled with people of different ages and ethnicities which made the entire experience so much more exciting for me. The backdrop of the music set was full of African drums of different sizes and bright lights that lit up the plaza so that the movements of each dancer and drummer could be seen clearly. The performers which consisted of students both male and female as well as the professor were stood on the stage wearing elaborate West-African traditional clothing. The professor began by giving us a brief introduction about the background, there were 5 main dance performances that were introduced, these were the Atsiagbekor, Kuhunga, Boboobo, Gahu and Chinyanda. There were deeper meanings to everything within the pieces, even when it came to the ratio of females and males in the performances. I found it interesting to learn about the Chinyanada dance, often known as the harvest dance and includes singing, dancing and praising beauty with both males and females performing. Whereas with the Kuhunga dance which was about puberty consisted of only females and was the only performance where all males drummed.
To expand further “Atisagbekor”, is a dance of the traditional Ewe (refers to the people originating from Ghana, Benin, and Togo) that is performed after a battle and on many social occasions. It is a very lively performance and the drums definitely reflect the kind of movement with the dancers, this is because the dancer’s actions correspond to that of the drummer. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this piece, I think from all the performances this one had the most upbeat beats and movements, ranging from dancers jumping to movements on the floor. The master drummer was certainly key in this piece as they kept the rhythm of the song, the cow-bell, and singing was also incorporated into this song. At the end of the performance, the professor gave us a brief background to this piece. It is usually performed after a war in order to celebrate the victory and bravery of the warriors. Throughout the piece the dancers were smiling and happy, this could have been used to portray the feeling of pride and victory during this happy occasion. The costumes incorporated into this performance could have also been used to symbolize unity that comes during this occasion, as everybody had been wearing the same costumes, even the female dancers. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece and found myself tapping my hands and feet to the rhythm of the music!
To expand further on the “Boboobo” dance which was performed, it is done by the Nzema and Ahanta Ghanaians and has evolved in a way which is used to illustrate peoples cultural, social, political and economic ideologies. This was an incredible piece that was upbeat and really captured the attention of the audience. There were multiple drummers for this piece but one main drummer playing the largest drum that kept the beat and rhythm of the entire song, other instruments such as the cow-bell and singing were also incorporated, and the performers danced with vigor and excitement with huge smiles to the beat of the drum. The last part of this performance involved dancers making strong torso movements, the master drum motives were usually based on verbal phrases, thus the drums were used as speech surrogates. The dancers also incorporated handkerchiefs to symbolize victory and freedom.
The “Kuhunga” is a music piece that was done in order to celebrate the process of coming into puberty, an important stage of life for both females and men in the society but particularly more important for men after circumcision. The piece is led by respected female members in order to celebrate the girls becoming women. For this particular performance, I noticed that there were no male dancers as they all played the drums and the stage was occupied by only female dancers this could have been because the women were celebrating the process for the men whereas the men ideally would take on more manly roles like playing the drums. I noticed a lot of shaking of the waists for this particular song from the women.
The “Gahu” was the next piece that was performed. This piece emanated from marriage and wedding rites. It was interesting to see both female and male dancers wearing skirts while singing and chanting words for praise. There was a lot of movement from the dancers which consisted of wiggling of the pelvis and vigorous of the hand movements as they moved around in a circle clockwise direction. This circular motion with the dancer’s interactions could be used to signify celebration and unity between the men and the women, whereas the previous performances which were line-motion symbolized war. The drummers were also part of this circle as they held their drums and dances and chanted as well. At first, I was resistant to sing along to the words being chanted, but as soon as I got into the rhythm I began singing and harmonizing with the performers. This performer-audience interaction made the whole experience so much more inspiring and interactive because the Professor kept urging people to join along to his singing! This was by far one of my most favorite pieces to watch because we as the audience got to join in.
The last piece was called the “Chinayna” this refers to a recreational music piece that is usually performed in Zambia; the rhythm was so upbeat, and the dancers got to showcase their moves as they stood in a circle and two by two walked into the circle and showcased out their best dance moves. This really reminded me of having grown up in Kenya and playing with my friends, we would stand in a circle and individually go inside the circle and show our best moves as everybody clapped and sang. There was also a lot of singing and cheering done in this performance, as Ewe phrases and words were chanted out by the singers who made all sorts of cheerful facial expressions which gave me an idea of the thrill and excitement people felt when performing this piece both on stage and in Ghana. and the crowd was encouraged by the professor to come up on stage and join. It was so touching to see people really appreciating this performance, as a lot of people including myself went up on stage and joined the dancers. In American culture, it is not so common to have people from the audience join into performances and it is sometimes considered rude when you cheer too loudly in an audience or even whistle, but for this performance and certainly in Ghana, cheering, whistling and participating with the crowd was encouraged.
Out of all the performances/concerts that I had attended, this was by far my favorite one. I loved how the professor encouraged us to participate! It was truly a remarkable performance!!