Analysing the Traditional Dance Onstage within the University in Close Reference to Opoku‘s Legacy
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Date
2011
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Journal of Performing Arts:University of Ghana, Legon
Abstract
As the topic suggests the aim of this paper is to trace the traditional dance in the university School of Performing Arts (SPA) , its place on the proscenium stage and what Mawere Opoku did with these dances. Albert Mawere Opoku was one of the canons in the Institute of African Studies (IAS) of the University of Ghana and instrumental in the formation of its School of Music and Dance in 1962. For more than three decades Opoku dedicated both his private and social life to teaching and researching dance in the university. This is not surprising when the very night he passed away; it was reported that the professor had been dancing earlier in the day. His strong background as a dancer was because he hails from a ―family of dancers‖. However, Opoku was a professional artist before he entered the field of dance and had been teaching art and painting at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST).
The traditional dance for many years prior to its introduction to the university was mainly seen and performed in village squares, lorry parks and market places or any open space within the society or the community. The performance in the communities involved a lot of performers and also audiences who could join the performance if they so wished. In Adinku‘s 2002 article in the ―Dance Chronicle‖, he states that ―role playing is very easy to practice within the traditional system. One seldom finds a performer exhibiting one particular role, rather due to the interrelations between music and dance, one finds that the dancer is also a music–maker‖. It is therefore very easy to see a musician changing roles to become a dancer, while an audience or an onlooker can easily become a musician or a dancer.