The Challenges of Application of African Traditional Dance for Contemporary Educational Relevance

Abstract

Students pursuing music degree courses in Kenyan public universities undergo dance instructions as part of their cognitive processes in learning traditional African music. The purpose of the dance courses is to enable students to practice, appreciate, preserve through performance and understand dance as a cultural identity in a modern educational context. Dances hitherto performed in specific cultural contexts are reconceptualised and situated into the classroom for instructional purposes thus raising fundamental questions regarding the effect/affect of reinterpretation processes that are inevitable. Through analytical and comparative procedures, this paper seeks to establish how various aspects, content, methodologies and performance practice of traditional African dances commonly taught at Kenyatta university are unearthed, interpreted, re-evaluated and integrated into new academic thinking yet remaining valuable and important source of cultural identity.