The Acquisition of Traditional Ghanaian Dance Performance Skills

Abstract

According to the recent census the population of Ghana is estimated to be twenty-four million people who belong to a number of different ethnic groups, each with its own culture. An ethnic group consists of a homogeneous community or group of people living in an area where, largely, traditional customs and practices have not been eroded by foreign culture. In Ghana, many of such societies, to a certain extent, still practice the same laws and customs as their forebears - and their traditional dance practice continues to exist. This paper suggests that the teaching of traditional dance in universities should not include just technique, but also a knowledge of the history, performance context, symbolic gestures and the local ways of learning these dances.