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| Title: | Words, music, dance and parody in confusion: the performance of Nzema 'Avudwene' songs |
| Author: | Agovi, Kofi Ermeleh |
| Year: | 1990 |
| Periodical: | Research Review |
| Volume: | 6 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 1-7 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ghana |
| Subjects: | Nzima traditional festivals songs |
| Abstract: | The 'Avudwene' performance is one of the most significant highlights of the annual Nzema 'Kundum' festival, which takes place at the end of the rainy season in the Jomoro District of Western Nzema, Ghana. There are songs, dance and music, and comic sketches. Each single event has its own set of performers, audience and space allocation, and during the actual performance there is a high degree of audience mobility. The impression is of a highly volatile performance situation in which a sense of a coherent performance is difficult to locate. The author looks at the nature of the various events which make up the total performance and analyses the different ways in which the sense of meaning and relevance is achieved. The three events which make up the overall performance reveal one dominating conceptual idea, the drive towards comic laughter through verbal satire, visual parody and obscene movement patterns. The central event of 'Avudwene' songs is perceived to unite the overall performance. In the 'Avudwene' performance, values and ideals are distorted and reconstituted as a form of renewal of human experience, and as a critical means of underlining meaning and relevance. The idea of a unified, coherent experience is further stressed by the underlining aesthetic of the performance through the use of different media of expression in support of a centrally organized and overriding idea. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |