Dance in Cameroon - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dance in Cameroon is an integral part of the tradition, religion, and socialising of the country's people. Cameroon

Cameroon

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...

has more than 200 traditional dances, each associated with a different event or situation. Colonial

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

authorities and Christian missionaries discouraged native dances as threats to security and pagan holdovers. However, after Cameroon's independence, the government recognised traditional dance as part of the nation's culture and made moves to preserve it.

Traditional dances follow strict choreography and segregate dancers based on age, occupation, sex, social status, and other factors. Some dances require special costumes and props such as masks or fans. Professional dancers make a living among some ethnic groups, and other professionals perform at national festivals and for tourists

Tourism in Cameroon

Tourism in Cameroon is a growing but relatively minor industry. Since the 1970s, the government of Cameroon has cultivated the industry by creating a ministry of tourism and by encouraging investment by airlines, hotels, and travel agencies. The government describes the country as "Africa in...

. Popular dance, wherein men and women dance together, is found in Cameroon's bars, nightclubs, and private parties. This style is closely tied with popular music

Music of Cameroon

The best-known Music of the Cameroon is makossa, a popular style that has gained fans across Africa, and its related dance craze bikutsi.The pirogue sailors of Douala are known for a kind of singing called ngoso, which has evolved into a kind of modern music accompanied by zanza, balafon and...

, such as makossa

Makossa

Makossa is a type of music that is most popular in urban areas in Cameroon. It is similar to soukous, except that it includes strong bass rhythm and a prominent horn section. Makossa, which means " dance" in Duala, originated from a type of Duala dance called kossa, with significant influences...

, bikutsi

Bikutsi

Bikutsi is a musical genre from Cameroon. It developed from the traditional styles of the Beti, or Ewondo, people, who live around the city of Yaounde. It was popular in the middle of the 20th century in West Africa...

, highlife

Highlife

Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...

, and hip hop

Hip hop

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

. Dancing is an important avenue of social protest and political rallying in the country.

History

Under Cameroon

Cameroon

's colonial

Colonialism

-era governments, German, British, and French regimes banned dances that they deemed a threat to their primacy. Meanwhile, Christian missionaries discouraged all kinds of dancing and forbade dances that they felt represented paganism

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

or offended Christian sensibilities. Many of these dances have since died out. Other dances were forgotten when the rituals associated with them were outlawed for similar reasons.

Nevertheless, traditional dance persisted. People continued to practice dances for purely social purposes or adapted them to Christian worship. Dancing in church became increasingly common as evangelical Christianity gained popularity and Cameroonian priests and pastors replaced Americans and Europeans. After Cameroon gained independence in 1960, the government recognised traditional dance as an integral part of the nation's culture, and non-governmental organisations promoted its preservation. Some villages enroll children in dance groups to teach them about their culture and native dances.

Traditional dance

Cameroon is home to more than 200 different traditional dances. Dance is part of most ceremonies

Ceremony

A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...

and ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s. Such dances accompany birth

Birth

Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring. The offspring is brought forth from the mother. The time of human birth is defined as the time at which the fetus comes out of the mother's womb into the world...

s, christening

Infant baptism

Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism or pedobaptism from the Greek pais meaning "child." The practice is sometimes contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or...

s, wedding

Wedding

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...

s, and funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

s and invoke the spirits of ancestors to cure the ill or increase fertility. The Bamileke

Bamileke

The Bamileke is a folk whose native ancestral area is in the western highlands of Cameroon's West Province, west of the Noun River and southeast of the Bamboutos Mountains and in the Moungo region of the Littoral, Southwest, and Centre Provinces. They are a part of the Semi-Bantu ethnic groups...

perform war dance

War dance

A war dance is a dance involving mock combat, usually in reference to tribal warrior societies where such dances were performed as a ritual connected with endemic warfare....

s, for example, and the motio of the southwest incorporates the slaying of a goat with a single blow to demonstrate the dancers' prowess. The Baka

Baka (Cameroon and Gabon)

The Baka, known in the Congo as Bayaka , are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rainforests of Cameroon, northern Republic of Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related...

dance the luma to celebrate a successful hunt. Among some groups, dancers work themselves into a trance

Trance

Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...

and communicate with the spirit world. For example, members of the ntsham society of the Kaka

Kaka

The New Zealand Kaka, also known as Kākā, is a New Zealand parrot endemic to the native forests of New Zealand.-Description:...

people in Cameroon's northwest dance to bring about spiritual possession

Spiritual possession

Spirit possession is a paranormal or supernatural event in which it is said that spirits, gods, demons, animas, extraterrestrials, or other disincarnate or extraterrestrial entities take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in health and behaviour...

.

Typically, traditional dances follow certain restrictions. Most traditional dances segregate participants according to sex. For example, women and men may form concentric same-sex circles, or they may dance in separate areas. Among various fondoms

Fon (Cameroon)

A fon is a chieftain or king of a region of Cameroon, especially among the Tikar and Bamiléké peoples of the Bamenda grassfields . Though once independent rulers, most fons were brought under the German rule or military subjugation during the colonial period...

in the Cameroon grassfields, nobles and commoners may not participate in the same dances. Likewise, traditional laws severely restrict the dancing of the fon's wives and daughters, often restricting them to the palace.

Some dances are intended only for a specific class of people, such as hunters, jesters, or warriors. Among some ethnic groups, professional dancers make their living performing dances at the appropriate ceremonies. In some villages, a diviner

Diviner

Diviner is an infrared sensing instrument aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, part of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program which is studying the moon...

dances as part of his or her duties. In modern times, such traditional dance professionals are rare. Instead, professional dancers live in urban centres and perform for tourists

Tourism in Cameroon

or at national festivals.

Many traditional Cameroonian dances follow strict choreography

Choreography

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

, although improvisation is common. Dancers move different parts of the body independently, focusing motion on more than one area. Dances are often associated with specific regalia or props. Traditional objects used include leather fans and small pieces of cloth. In the grasslands, masks are common. The gourna

Gourna

Gourna may refer to;* The Tupuri people, an ethnic group in Cameroon and Chad* Kurna, three village areas located near the Theban Hills in Egypt....

of the Tupuri

Tupuri

Tupuri or Toupouri may refer to:* The Tupuri people of Cameroon and Chad* The Tupuri language, spoken by that people* Lake Tupuri in Cameroon...

incorporates long sticks that dancers carry upright in a circle.

Popular dance

Popular dance is within the purview of urban bars, nightclubs, and private parties, although it has grown more popular in rural areas. DJs provide the music as dancers move about and drink beer or palm wine. Unlike traditional dances, popular dancing allows the sexes to mingle. Cameroon's most popular native musical genres

Music of Cameroon

, bikutsi

Bikutsi

and makossa

Makossa

, are styles of dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

. Cameroon has imported a number of popular dances from abroad, including the maringa

Maringá

Maringá is a city in southern Brazil that was founded on May 10, 1947. Maringá is the third largest city in the state of Paraná. The city has a population of 357,117 , 612,617 in its metropolitan area...

from Ghana in the 1850s, the ashiko

Ashiko

An ashiko is a kind of drum shaped like a truncated cone and meant to be played with bare hands. The drum is played throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas....

from Nigeria in the 1920s, and the abele

Abele

Abele is a small village or hamlet in the city of Poperinge, in the Belgian province of West-Flanders. The village is located on the territory of Poperinge proper and its "deelgemeente" Watou, but is also partly located on French territory. Abele has about 600 inhabitants, of whom about 100 are...

from Nigeria more recently. Popular non-Cameroonian dance music includes Nigerian highlife

Highlife

Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...

and American hip-hop. In 2000, the government of the Southwest Province banned mapouka

Mapouka

Mapouka, also known under the name of Macouka, is a traditional dance from the south-east of the Ivory Coast in the area of Dabou, sometimes carried out during religious ceremonies. It is also known as, "La danse du fessier" or "the danse of the behind ".This dance has daring choreography that can...

, a dance imported from Côte d'Ivoire, for its sexual nature. European dance, such as ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

, is popular among wealthy urban Cameroonians.

Dance has become an important vehicle of social commentary and political protest. While the popular press can be muzzled by the government, dancers in the street are freer to express their discontent with—or support for—government policies or political parties. Opponents of Cameroon's first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo

Ahmadou Ahidjo

Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo was the first President of Cameroon from 1960 until 1982.-Early life:Ahidjo was born in Garoua, a major river port along the Benue River in northern Cameroun, which was at the time a French mandate territory...

, danced to show their disapproval. Other popular dances commemorate historical events from Cameroonian history.

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