Fumɛfumɛ: Creating a New Dance Form from Traditional Dances

Abstract

Dance in many cultures is performed as a form of arousing emotions, social communication, and spiritual fulfillment. Traditional dances are mostly associated with indigenous people of a particular ethnic group. Therefore, any art form emanating from the indigenes is perhaps likely to be termed traditional. Members of similar community sometimes create new dance forms within the framework of existing dances. A typical example is the Fumɛfumɛ dance created in the late 1960s. The study seeks to establish how a new dance form was created from some traditional dances. It will also bring to the fore the importance of Ga-Dangme traditional dances from which movements were selected to create the Fumɛfumɛ dance, create a choreographic piece based on the philosophy and mystery behind the Fumɛfumɛ dance, and also try to sustain the practice and appreciation of Ghanaian traditional dances through the chronicling of the history behind the creation of the Fumɛfumɛ dance. In this research, certain questions were raised as to which ethnic group created the Fumɛfumɛ dance, how a new dance form can be created without completely ignoring the elements that influenced them, how can the myth and philosophy behind the creation of Fumɛfumɛ be put into a choreographic piece among others. The researcher will attend, observe, and interview the two families (Addy and Oku we) all of Atukpai in Ga mashie who are claiming ownership of the Fumɛfumɛ dance. This will be accomplished through ethical research and techniques of gathering data as qualitative approach, population, sample and sampling technique, research design and finally design research instruments. The researcher expects to find out which family created the Fumɛfumɛ dance. This research will help ethnographers, lecturers, dance students and others get adequate information on the Fumɛfumɛ dance and unravel the myths behind the name, decode some of the movements and understand,examine,decode as well the African philosophy surrounding the creation of the Fumɛfumɛ dance.