Learning Journal #6

So apparently, one of the articles I read for my "annotated sources" assignment was REALLY. REALLY good!! It was the one entitled: African Dance: the Continuity of Change. The next part of this journal entry is going to describe on thing he said, well- one aspect he focused on but I PROMISE this WILL NOT BE a summary!

So this author divided dance up into six behaviors. They go as follows:
1. cultural: reflects the attitudes and beliefs of a people. HELLO! That is where I began my study; what does the current dancing practices of rural Ghana reveal about the belief system of the younger generation vs. the older generation.
2. social: it helps establish what the relationships are between persons in the community. I thought at one time about this when it came to boys versus girls. I think I'll probably steer away from this idea... unless I'm really desperate for data.

*one thing I noticed today in one of my meetings was that if you have an idea, and you come to find out that that idea won't work- DO NOT try and make that idea fit in with your new one... just LET IT GO! so I'm learning which of the ideas about dance I need to let go and which ones I need to focus on more. If I have a more specific study in mind, my project will have more focus, thereby allowing it to be more organized, etc.

3. psychological: this one is very interesting because the author uses it to explain the emotional response people have when they dance, and how it affects their life-- whoa! "affects their LIFE".... some people take dance really seriously!

4. economic: it sounded like a marketing term, having people pay you for your services... this is a fairly new idea I feel certain of (though I cannot say for positive). I will not be dealing with this too much, in fact, I'm not even sure how prevalent that is in Wiamose.

5. political: dance can be used for leadership training...I thought that was interesting... but mostly, I can see dance as being political in Ghana because it was one of Nkrumah's platforms for creating a Ghanaian identity.

and last but not least, 6. communicative: it's almost a language in and of itself. That is why another one of the articles I picked was about an anthropological approach to dance. The people of Ghana are saying something when they dance, and it's up to me to figure out what. Perhaps that is why dance is changing, each generation has something different to say.

I really like this concept. The early slaves in the Americas made up dances to make fun of their owners (so they didn't do it out loud in case their owners hear them). Whenever I dance, it is usually to express how I am feeling that day-- happy, moody, sad, sexy (am I allowed to say that?!) :) Anyhoo, I guess in a really poetic sense, that is what I'm trying to figure out: what the younger generations are trying to say versus the older generations.