AFRICAN DANCE. THE ROOT OF MANY DANCES

Seemingly every genre of dance has roots in Black culture, and specifically African.

The influence of Black culture can be seen at every angle of the dance world.

Drums start to beat, and it’s time to move your body. But enthusiasm and following the rhythm are not enough. You need to know the steps, wear the right outfit, and be aware of your role in the community. Each element of African dance is full of cultural significance.

African dance refers to a form of performing art found among most cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa. Still practiced today, it involves rhythmic body movements combined with music and sometimes theatrical representations. There are as many forms of African dance as there are human groups.

Dance is a fundamental part of the cultural fiber and an important activity that serves several purposes in the community. People dance in festivals, religious ceremonies, marriages, funerals, and almost every social occasion. Dances serve to impart knowledge and traditions.

More than a mere performer, the dancer becomes an active member of the community. Local storytellers, teachers, healers, and ordinary individuals adopt specific roles while dancing.
Some dances help define individual roles within the community. The Maasai Adumu dance in Kenya is part of the coming of age ceremony for men. It involves each young man trying to jump higher than the other. Those who perform the best gain social recognition as warriors and earn priority when choosing their future wives.

The themes of dances can be traditional concerns, like fertility, rain, or good harvests. One example is the Kakilambe fertility dance from West Africa. They can also be inspired by contemporary issues such as racism or political demands.

HISTORY OF AFRICAN DANCE

Each dance has its own origin, closely related to the culture and beliefs of the tribe that created it. It’s unclear how or when dances first appeared, but they have been part of the African life for centuries.
Dances are passed down to younger generations. The young learn the movements, often dating back to the times of age-old ancestors. Since there’s usually no room for improvisation, many dances have remained intact for generations.

African rhythms expanded from Africa to America, mostly through the forced migrations of Africans taken as slaves. The influences are especially strong in the Caribbean and South America. Rhythms like salsa, Afro-Cuban jazz, Brazilian samba, Colombian cumbia, Venezuelan drums, and many others have African roots.
Today, traditional dances are strongly tied to cultural identity and continue to be practiced both for their symbolic meaning and as a way to preserve cultural heritage. Throughout Africa and among African descendant communities in America and Europe, there are many schools that teach the traditional rhythms.

Formations & Moves

We find dances exclusively intended for men or women, for the young or elders, for those who have completed initiation rituals. Usually, every member of the community participates in at least one. Most dances have a strong narrative character, and they often tell us a story.
Drums are the prevailing instrument, and most groups use them to indicate the rhythm and provide the musical background for dancing. Chants are also frequent.

Indigenous Moves

Africa’s many tribes each developed their own unique dances, typically accompanied by vocal and percussive music that varied from tribe to tribe. The dances fell into three main categories: Ritual (religious), Ceremonial, and Griotic (storytelling).

Ritual Dance

The spiritual infuses every aspect of traditional African life. In Zimbabwe, the Mbira was an all-purpose performance, danced by the Shona people to summon ancestors, beseech the tribal guardians, temper droughts and floods, honor death anniversaries, seek guidance in tribal and family disputes, and even install a new chief. Ritual dance is a unifier that enhances peace, health, and prosperity.

AFRICAN DANCE (MOM AND HER DESCENDANTS).

Check out these five popular dance genres you may, or may not, have realized are rooted in Black culture.

Modern Dance

Since the second half of the 20th Century, African dance massively transformed Western dance and ultimately influenced what we know today as Modern dance. And two Black American dancers, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus, made immeasurable contributions to Modern dance based on their research done in Africa and the Caribbean.
And dance companies, such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, continued to contribute to and transform the genre of Modern dance. Alvin Ailey holds an important place in the Modern dance world for being the choreographer of the ‘black modern dance.’ He trained in and learned from a variety of teachings (including the likes of Katherine Dunham) before creating his own company—which now is a renowned company for multiethnic dancers and choreographers.

Tap Dance

When I was doing research for this blog post, the genre I was most surprised to read about was Tap. I spent 20 years doing flaps, shuffles, and riffs, and never once learned about the history behind each step. Tap dance originated in the U.S. in the early 19th century and is a fusion of African and Irish American dance styles. According to an article by the University of Michigan, when slave owners took away traditional African percussion instruments, slaves often turned to percussive dancing to retain their cultural identities—creating a unique form of movement and rhythm.

Jazz Dance

The origins of Jazz dance stem from the 17th century, when African people were forced to North America amid the slave trade. Staying low to the ground, knees bent, pulsating body movements, and body isolations are styles of African dance that can be seen in the Jazz genre. As slaves were forced into America, they were cut off from their families, languages, and traditions—resulting in an intermingling of African cultures. The movements of African dance: foot stamping, hand clapping, and rhythms were woven into what we know today as Jazz.

Hip Hop Dance

The dance genre most widely known for its roots in Black culture is HipHop—but did you know the rise of key HipHop elements can actually be traced back to one DJ? HipHop was rising in popularity through the 1970s and DJ Kool Herc can be credited with growing the genre into what it is today. At a 1973 dance party, Herc spun the same record on twin turntables, toggling between them to draw out the percussive ‘breaks.’ New York DJs followed Herc’s lead and gradually finessed the technique and perfected what we now know as ‘breaking.’

HipHop was inspired by African dance and thrived as a new genre performed on the street—it was a dance “for the people.” When it comes to movement, HipHop incorporates aspects of seemingly every other dance genre: from modern and jazz dance, to tap and swing.

Select Latin dance, including Salsa

If you practice the art of Latin dance, you most likely dance to music that has origins not just in Latin America, but also in Black African culture and the Atlantic slave trade and chances are some of the songs are actually about the impact of global inequality and structural racism.

Rumba is a dance genre that originated from Black Cubans in the 19th century. According to “Race, Gender, and Class Embodied in Cuban Dance” by Yvonne Payne Daniel, after the Cuban revolution in 1959, many musicians from the island moved to New York, meeting up with other Caribbean and Latino cultures. Soon enough, different music styles came to life in New York City, eventually transforming into what we know as Salsa.

Seemingly every genre of dance has roots in Black culture, and specifically African dance.

From streets in the Bronx, where the popularity of HipHop grew, to international stages and studios, where famous artists performed ballet and modern genres, the influence of Black culture can be seen at every angle of the dance world.

Thanks to our ancestors and to this rich roots we can enjoy so many dance styles. These five popular dance genres you may, or may not, have realized are rooted in Black culture: Jazz, Hip Hop, Tap Dance, Salsa, Modern among others.

In Stepflix we have classes online to learn some of this styles, we also have very talented performers and representatives of many styles. Do not miss the experience of connecting with your body, culture and love for movement.

Visit our website and get a variety of entertainment and learning related to these rhythms, such as Salsa, Samba, and much more. StepFlixEntertainment