Project Lead: Dr Jennies Deide Darko, Department of Dance Studies
Dance as an academic discipline at the University of Ghana began in 1962, with the establishment of the Ghana Dance Ensemble, whose purpose of duality was to exhibit aesthetic values of Ghana, as well as to serve as a research resource through which Ghanaian traditional dance with its related art forms, could be intellectualised in education and development. Dance scholar and practitioner William Adinku notes,
"The study and development of various aspects of the creative culture was assigned to the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in October, 1962. Within the Institute of African Studies was the School of Music and Drama whose research fellows were charged by Government with the responsibility of carrying out research and offering instruction in the traditional performing arts, as well as establishing processes for the development of new art forms based on traditional models. Dance development and education played a significant role in the school of Music and Drama under the supervision of Professor J. H. Nketia and Professor A. M. Opoku (Adinku, 1994, 1)."
The Dance Studies curriculum, having been in existence for sixty-one (61) years, is yet to have a major review and enrichment of its repertoire. Almost all the neo-traditional dance forms currently in the curriculum were designed over six (6) decades ago, through folklorisation and theatricalisation. Secondly, the various processes of change these traditional/neo-traditional dances have undergone in their various native soils, have given them new aesthetic and artistic dimensions, a pattern the academy has significantly missed. The three (3) dance types selected for this research endeavour to represent new additions to tradition in the current, and fast-changing world of technology.
This project therefore, sought to investigate and document Akwapim Fontomfrom, Atsiafulegedi and Obonu dance forms in both conceptual, and practical terms in order to augment the strength, and purpose of Traditional African dance in the curriculum of the Department of Dance Studies.