Teaching Traditional Ghanaian Dance Forms in Higher Education in the Diaspora
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Date
2022
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Taylor & Francis Group
Abstract
Learning a dance form from a culture
outside of one’s own, in my
observation, can be quite daunting
for students, especially those who do not
have any dancing experience or those who
have experienced dance but not in African
forms. This was indicated each year in an
assignment in which students were
required to share their experiences in a
West African dance class that I taught for 6
years in the Department of Dance at the
Texas Woman’s University. In their
responses, the students shared their fears,
misconceptions, uncertainties and
concerns, which can be put into two
categories. The first category — from
students with and without dancing
experience — includes fears and misconceptions
about difficulty in performing
African dance forms resulting in concerns
about their ability to dance. The second
category — from dance students —
includes concerns and uncertainties about
the level of challenge that the class might
offer to them as an elective class open to
students from all disciplines. The students,
however, indicated in their responses that
the structure of the class and the way in
which pedagogy occurred helped alleviate
their fears, misconceptions and concerns.
In this article, ideas undergirding the
structure created to support pedagogy of
West African dance forms as a university
core curriculum course are presented. The
structure focused on five ideas — the five
C’s — which are the need to create a
comfortable environment that will provide
a support base for students to build
confidence in their movement capabilities,
encourage them to get involved in
teaching and learning through the
creation of community, and provide
feedback in the form of comments and
compliments to the entire class. The article
concludes with a few suggestions for
teachers who are engaged with the pedagogy of Ghanaian dance forms at the
tertiary level.
Description
Research Article