Introduction
There are many ways in which people new to a particular culture can initiate cultural exchange. However, when it came to deciding on the activity for the project, I chose a live dance performance by Diamano Coura West African Dance Company (Diamano Coura) for the immersive potential it provided. A live dance performance introduced the culture; the following dance class allowed me to experience it personally; and the music that followed this activity provided additional opportunities to observe, learn, and reflect.
West African Dance Peculiarities
The event included a live performance by Diamano Coura and a dance class instructed by the company’s directors and members. The class mainly focused on West African dance techniques and movements, providing participants with a hands-on experience of the cultural form. African dancing involves the whole body; it incorporates angular bending of the arms, legs, torso, shoulders, and hips, scuffing, stomping, and hopping movements, asymmetrical body usage, and fluidity of the overall process. Moreover, it is greatly rhythmical and artistic, which is supported by the use of drums as musical instruments of choice.
I deduced a significant social context for the dance based on my observations. It could be seen by the performers’ expressions and engagement how the process invited other people to join and enjoy it together. I believe that in a natural setting, this activity can serve a profound recreational purpose.
I could also vividly imagine how the dance, initiated by a small group, could quickly grow into a celebration due to other people constantly joining in the performance. Later, once I spoke to dance instructors directly, I learned that, apart from recreation, dance has strong ritualistic and religious contexts. Particularly, it can be used to establish spiritual connections, allowing people to communicate with spirits, offer them praise, and ask for help and guidance. Moreover, it can also be used to pay respect to older people and representatives of higher social status.
Theoretical Considerations
Cultural Expression
The chosen dance performance can be viewed through the lenses of cultural expression and as a projection of personal emotions and desires. Regarding the former, Eret Dylan (2023b) stated that “one of the eight functions of dance is an expression of a ritualization or cultural identity.” It is analogous to the statement made by Homans (2010) about family pride and inheritance, which he often associates with ballet, the dance he genuinely enjoys performing. In the African context, rituals represent the traditions of African civilization by giving guidelines for conduct in the world of the profane and opening a passageway into the world of the sacred and supernatural. If these rituals are embedded in other forms of cultural representation, such as dance, it also allows for a very convenient cultural exchange. For example, by attending the Diamano Coura dancing session, I managed to experience this particular manifestation of African culture firsthand.
It is important to note that this is not the first time I have elaborated on dance as a cultural medium. Previously, when I was introduced to the topic of dance as a part of our course, I learned about the Japanese butoh dance and the peculiarities surrounding its origin. In this context, Beaman (2018) exemplifies the importance of butoh for Japanese society at that time. In particular, butoh was mainly inspired by flamenco dancers in Latin America, namely La Argentina and Divine (Beaman, 2018).
This fact indicates the process of cultural exchange, that is, learning something different and adapting it to already-known concepts to create a unique form of expression. Secondly, this dance promoted a variety of unacceptable themes and, thus, openly confronted Japan’s unwillingness to acknowledge any concepts that were alien to their culture. In other words, it forcefully promoted cultural exchange to avoid the extreme isolationist tendencies that were deemed detrimental by butoh’s practitioners.
Another crucial part of ritualism, as such, is the connection to the sacred and ephemeral. As I watched people perform their traditional dance, I could see how they transcended the limits of their bodies, seemingly being present somewhere else. This reminded me of the escapism and tendencies mentioned by McGonigal (2011). Namely, the author referred to the term “mass exodus” in the context of people preferring virtual reality to regular human-to-human interactions. The main similarity I see between games and dances here is that they leave reality in search of this transcendent experience.
Emotional Expression
This connects to the second theoretical concept of the emotional part of a dance. According to Eret (2023a), “dance is a deep form of cultural play; it ultimately induces this joy and excitement” (4:29 4:35). African dance is an expression that describes the sensations that life has to offer, including sensuality, pleasure, delight, and appreciation of life. From the broadest perspective regarding art, the emotional brain takes precedence over the rational brain in most cases (Asma, 2017). Moreover, the desire to experience the emotions provided by a particular artistic activity often becomes the main reason why people undertake such activities in the first place.
As an individual who had never experienced African dance personally, my emotions were greatly influenced by its novelty. However, there was a part that was familiar to me from the start: music. By attending the dance event, I had a chance to prove to myself that “music is, indeed, the universal language of mankind” (Mehr et al., 2019, p. 2). Another statement I previously encountered only in theory was the one made by Titon (2016), who states that “although music is universal, its meaning is not” (p. 3). In particular, this tendency can be attributed to the uniqueness of each composer multiplied by their cultural background (Titon, 2016).
Drums are an integral part of music, representing rhythm and tempo. Nevertheless, even considering my previous encounters with drums in Western culture, there were elements unique to Diamano Coura. For instance, the drums they used during their performance were made from different materials and had a different shape and size from a regular drum set. Understandably, it produced sounds that fit the performance better, justifying the differences.
Conclusion
By attending the event hosted by Diamano Coura, I capitalized on the opportunities to increase my cultural awareness of Africa and its Western society. Firstly, African dance emphasizes the fluidity of the body’s movements, emphasizing cohesion and naturalness. Secondly, it promotes traditions as a social activity and ritual connection to the intangible. Finally, it reflects the importance of “here and now” and urges us to enjoy life and what it offers.
References
Asma, S. T. (2017). The evolution of imagination. University of Chicago Press.
Beaman, P. L. (2018). World dance cultures. Routledge.
Eret, D. (2023a). Human 1 – The elements of dance [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Eret, D. (2023b). Human 1 – The functions of dance [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Homans, J. (2010). Apollo’s angels: A history of ballet. Ballantine Books.
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. Penguin.
Mehr, S. A., Singh, M., Knox, D., Ketter, D. M., Pickens-Jones, D., Atwood, S., & Glowacki, L. (2019). Universality and diversity in human song. Science, 366(6468), 1-36. Web.
Titon, J. T. (2016). Worlds of music: An introduction to the music of the world’s peoples. Cengage Learning.