F H 4: Music and Dance
Music & Dance are a big part of African life
In Africa you cannot separate music from life. Every event...a birth, a wedding, catching a fish, the end of day, a death, anything, everything, is celebrated with music. African rhythms have spread around the world enriching many musical genres.
Musicians
Man With Drum
Olaudah was from the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria in West Africa. He described how every great event in his village was celebrated with public dances, songs and music suited to each occasion.
Man With Talking Drum
H13 W11 D10" 1996 P#195
But drums have also served another purpose in Africa. Long before the cell phone, long before the telegraph my people had wireless communications.
For untold centuries we used code to send messages from village to village with our "talking" drums.
Dogon Dancer
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Pende Dancer (detail)
N'Kele ©1995, Wire/Alum, 26x48x11"
Dancers, many on tall stilts, elaborate costumes woven from raffia palm, drummers and other musicians all contribute to the excitement of the Pende celebrations. The Pende people live in the Bandundu region of Congo.
Musicians I
1991, 15x13x11" (Kenneth Holmes Collection)
The artist plays a Kalimba (Thumb Piano) he made from pieces of a broken street light and some bicycle spokes.
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Ancient Sudanese ram statues recently discovered at el Hassa in
In one of rare discoveries showing a written African language, French archeologists have unearthed three ram statues in Sudan engraved with an ancient Sudanese language,according to a news report by the BBC.
The statues were discovered three weeks ago closer to an archeological site, which is home to some of the numerous
The inscriptions on the ram statues are expected to shed more light on King Amanakhareqerem, which has been the subject of archeological studies in the area. The statues were excavated in front of an ancient temple...