Music, dance and story telling are among the forms of art that have been kept century after century in Africa. Everyday life activities in traditional Africa included music and many other cultural experiences. Music and dance were traditions that characterized an African musical expression and played an important role in the lives of the people.The traditional music of Africa possessed a distinguishing feature of rhythmic complexity like no other continent. Music was highly functional in ethnic life, accompanying birth, marriage, hunting and even political activities.Before the 20th century, music was very different when compared to the 21st century music. Special occasions owned a distinctive type of African music.
He is truly being inspired from a more simple and humble beginning in the West Indies when he strips down his dancers in “From Before” to just the bare essentials. Garth Fagan is clearly expressing culture through dance as his choreography draws upon African and West Indian roots for inspiration. He expresses context by stripping down his performers to very bare costumes and thus taking African dance and applying it in a unconventional situation. Tradition, I feel ties into culture in this case and is expressed by the preservation throughout the performance of many of the same movements used in African dance. Garth Fagan expresses value by although changing the context of African dance he has preserved the
Following the emancipation of slaves, rhyme songs, ballads, and blues became abundant in the African American community. Blues was a reflection of the trials and tribulations of African American life and tended to have a melancholy tone. These genres were a form of solo folk song in which the performer translates emotion into music by using wordless sounds, and they became the foundation for the development of jazz. Although blues and jazz are considered musical cousins, jazz was a joyous revolt from convention, authority, and sorrow. Jazz was characterized by a sense of energy and a melody that did not always follow the beat.
Black people lacked a voice in the early 19'00s and they needed a way to express themselves. They would put their heart and soul into what they were experiencing in music. Jazz not only being entertaining but also expressive. I can recall a quote from the movie that said if every piece of African American history was to be wiped out, jazz music alone would suffice to define us as a people and make us credible for helping to add to U.S history. Such strong words when it comes to
The African tradition of decorating the body both enhances one’s beauty and gives a person a higher status in their tribe” (African). Although African body art and scarification fuels many prejudices about the African people from the outside world, body art has existed as an important aspect of African history that allows self-expression in various tribes because forms of body decoration have existed for over five thousand years. Body art has existed as an important aspect of African history because of the many styles of body decoration that exist. Africans use scarification, body paint, mud coloring, body piercing, and lip disks to embellish their bodies. Scarification, also known as “The Proud Mark”, describes the art where a person marks his or her skin in decorative patterns.
Koko: Yiri Western African music spread to USA and Caribbean through the slave trade. Professional musician is called a griot. A griot family passes it's knowledge through the generations through mouth to mouth oral tradition. Has had influence on genres such as blues, jazz and rock music. Key features used in western African music - repetition: melodies and rhythms being played over and over again - improvisation: melodies and rhythms being made up as they go along - call and response: usually a solo performer signs something and a larger group then repeats what has just been sung Layered textures: music built up from independent lines that are designed to be heard together All these are used in Yiri, Yiri is performed by koko.
These reasons are that it has enabled the construction of black communities, it brought education to many African Americans, it brought African Americans into politics, it ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and it gave us a taste of what it means to be free. Reconstruction helped bring African Americans together socially through churches and public schools. Back in the slave days, a social life was non-existent and you were lucky to work on the same plantation as your family. Although it is still scary to go outside for many blacks, we have the option of living with our families and loosening our chains to leave as we please, which was unheard of twenty years ago. Black churches have made it possible for black communities to come together, which has been very beneficial when forming organizations and networking.
EDC 1501 Semester 1 assignment 2 Unique number 864932 Africa has a large variety of cultures and ethnicities all intermingle within one another. This includes Western as well as African ways of thinking. Classrooms in Africa will ultimately have a mixture of Western and African philosophies where one philosophy may be in dominance over the other. Western philosophy puts the individual at the centre of life where African philosophy puts the community at the centre of life. The learner most lightly feels withdrawn and fails to participate in classroom activities because he/she feels like an individual rather than feeling like a member of the community of the classroom.
He rebelled against family about the career they had chosen for him, which lead him to also join the circuses. He went on to formed a blackface group, which was the first to offer minstrel shows into a fixed three-act form. Lastly, of the founders was Stephen Foster who while being a bookkeeper became successful for his songwriting and later joined Christy Minstrels where he wrote blackface minstrel show traditional songs at that time. They all seemed to have similarities coming from middle-class background and all seemed to not have success in theater or any other interests which had lead them to blackface minstrelsy. The parts of a blackface minstrel show was to present the black character as being stupid, as being laughable, as being a silly person.
Both of these sources offered interesting insight into the ways of life across the African nations. At the art museum, I noticed that many of the objects depicted gods and spirits. I saw masks that were worn for religious ceremonies. There were also many statues of gods. These objects were different among the different regions, but they were each representative of gods.