4.1 African dance

The movements

• Move freely to the music.
• Use all the moveable body parts.
• Walk to the beat of the music in a circle or lines.
• You are free to clap your hands to the beat of the music while you are moving.
• Perform simple foot patterns.
• Experiment with the different levels, e.g. leaning forwards from the hips, torsos almost parallel with the ground.

• Use rapid foot beats, moving weight from heel to toe to side of the foot, in a variety of rhythmic patterns (as though balancing on an unsteady canoe or picking your way through a swamp).
• Mime ‘paddling’.
• Execute movements that suggest finding a way through forest undergrowth, which necessitates reactions of being alert to the unexpected.
• Bend your knees and at the same time, do swinging arm movements.
• Experiment with movements while bending your knees.

Dance formations

• There are four principal African dance formations:

• a dance team using a formalised floor pattern
• a group using a free-flow floor pattern
• a group using a formation from which solo dancers emerge to display their individual skills
• a solo dancer; usually the ruler, ritual specialist, herbalist, or comic entertainer, who may be supported by a group of musicians

• The most common form of dance within the traditions of Africa is a team dance performed either in a closed circle, with the dancers facing the centre, or in a line following a circular path that is often centred on the musicians.
• The dancers usually move along the circle, in a counter-clockwise direction.
• A linear or circular floor pattern is used in cultures employing a combination of team or soloist.
• Dance in unison in a circular formation, from which each dancer breaks away to perform individually in the centre.
• Start in a loosely knit semi-circular line from which some dancers move out toward the spectators or audience.
• If you are using musicians, move towards and away from the musicians.
• Move in a more ordered line executing expressive hand gestures.

Dance posture

• There are three characteristic dance postures:

• an upright posture with a straight back (used as an expression of authority in the dance of chiefs and priests
• inclining forward from the hips, moving the attention and gestures toward the ground
• the dancer holding the torso nearly parallel to the ground, taking the body weight onto the balls of the feet

1. Movement!

• Move to the music taking into account the background to African dance your educator provided for you.

Activity 3:

To create a dance : ‘african dance’ for heritage day

[lo 1.3]

Taking the first Activity into account as the background, incorporate all that you have explored and experienced, into a dance for Heritage Day.

2. The Creation of an African Dance

• Select music and movements from the previous exercise to choreograph your special Heritage Day Dance.
• The dance should not exceed three minutes.
• Plan the dance with your educator.
• Employ principles of form – motif, development, repetition, variation, contrast, transition, climax and unity in shaping the dance with sections, linked into a whole.
• Consider the audience in the presentation, e.g. spatial placing, shape, line, focus and projection.
• Devise costume and make-up for the dance.

3. The Performance

• Rehearse and perform your dance on Heritage Day with costumes, masks, make-up, etc.

Activity 4:

To cool down&Stretch the body after executing the exercises

[lo 1.4]

It is important for the muscles used during the activities to be stretched and the learners to be cooled down in order for them to function in the other classes.

Breathing exercise:

Stand with feet a hip-width apart, arms hanging at the sides.

• Inhale through the nose, raising arms above the head.
• Exhale through the mouth, dropping arms and bending knees at the same time.
• Repeat four times.

A rm stretch:

• Take the right arm across the chest and with the left hand slowly pull arm towards the body – repeat on left side.

Arm stretch (triceps):

• Lift right arm straight up above your head.
• Bend arm at the elbow – arm behind your head.
• With left hand slowly pull right arm at the elbow towards the left.
• Feel the stretch in your triceps.
• Hold stretch for eight counts – release.
• Change arms.

Lower body stretch:

• Open legs wide – knees slightly bent.
• Turn to the right with your whole body.
• Bend knees at a 90-degree angle – keep upper body straight – place your hands on the front leg.
• Hold for 8 counts.
• Straighten legs – bring body down to the front leg as far as you can go – place hands lower down on your leg or on the floor if you are able to.
• Hold for eight counts.

• Bend front leg and place hands on the floor.
• Bring whole body down towards the floor and straighten back leg out behind you – toe on the floor, heel raised.
• Lift the front part of the foot of the front bent leg.
• Hold for eight counts.

• Keep hands on the floor and take the front bent leg back to join the back leg.
• Keep your feet together and bend the right knee towards the floor.
• Hold stretch for eight counts.
• Bend the left knee – hold for eight counts.

• Put heels down and ‘walk’ hands towards your feet.
• If your hands do not touch the floor, hold onto your legs.
• Hold hamstring stretch for eight counts.

• Slowly curl up – head up last.
• Shake all moveable body parts.
• Bow to your educator to say ‘thank you’ for the class.

Assessment