The Geographies of West African Dances
This is a tool to help you understand people, places, and cultures of Africa through dance. Explore this website to find maps of African dances, and read about how dances are also maps themselves.
Critiques of Maps
Africanists critique maps of Africa made by Europeans. Often historically used as tools for graphically representing colonial possessions, maps have been instrumental in the dispossession of the continent from Africans, to the detriment of its residents' wellbeing. "The sum of these critiques is not only that European cartography is not neutral, but that it is culturally-situated and produces place in ‘partial and interested’ ways (Propen 2009: 127). In sum, European maps are powerful place-making mechanisms, but there is space for other cartographies" (Noxolo 2015).
“Dance in Africa goes beyond somatic expression, extending to music, movement, language, dramatic enactment, visual arts, symbolism, philosophy, religion, cosmology, cosmogony, science, spirituality, technology, customs and institutions”
- Sylvanus Kwashie Kuwor
Dance is a Place-making practice
Whether danced in the traditional village context, in the rapidly-growing cosmopolitan cities of Africa, or beyond the continent in Europe and the Americas, authentic African Dance transforms spaces into places of respect for oneself and others, respect for ancestors, and respect for the Earth by means of the qualities of the dance.