story by SAMANTHA KINHANphotography by PETER HOFFMAN

Paschal Younge and Zelma Badu-Younge use African music and dance to foster cultural awareness

THE

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OF MOVEMENT

" Members of the Azaguno dance troupe perform Bata during a spring 2009 Aza concert at Ohio University’s Templeton Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. Bata is a traditionally distinct ritual form of expression for Shango, the Yoruba deity of thunder and lightning. The Yoruba people are an ethnic group in southwestern Nigeria. Bata dance drumming plays an essential part in the ritual process of the worship, connecting deity to devotees.

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When dancers leave the stage and swirl in their vibrant costumes through the aisles of Ohio University’s Margaret Walter Hall Rotunda, audience members are not quite sure how to react. At first, that is. Before long, many of them are swept up in the revelry and join the dancers as they move to traditional music from the west African country of Ghana.

Such is the power of African dance music to touch the emotions of anyone who hears its rhythms, according to the directors responsible for the perfor-mance this evening in early spring.

“If you can walk, you can dance!” says Paschal Younge, associate professor of

multicultural music education.

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Younge and Zelma Badu-Younge, associate professor of dance, lead the Ohio University African Ensemble. The ensemble is part of Younge and Badu-Younge’s far-ranging venture to bridge the cultural gap between western and African cultures through stage performance, classroom instruction, and aca-demic research. Since 2005, they have directed the ensemble in performances year-round for a wide variety of audiences across the Ohio University campus and in the Athens community. They use their classrooms to promote multicultural awareness in the universal language of music and dance, and Younge has developed a curriculum guide for other educators interested in teaching about African culture.

In many African villages, people come together in response to the beating of a drum as an opportunity to give one another a sense of belonging and of solidarity, according Younge.

That idea is reflected in the makeup of the ensemble, which is open to any Ohio University student, regardless of major, who might feel compelled to get up and dance, pick up a jembe drum, or simply learn more about African culture.

" Bamaaya, which means “the river (valley) is wet,” is the most popular so-cial dance drumming of the Dagbamba people of northern Ghana. It began as a religious music and dance performance but now functions during funerals, festivals, national day celebrations, and other social occasions.

# Zelma Badu-Younge, center, and Kalie Metzger, right, take a bow with the Ohio University African Ensemble and Azaguno at the end of the performance.

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" Bamaaya calls for intricate footwork by the Azaguno dancers.

! Nick Ungar and Amos Adomowim, members of Azaguno, perform Bata.

!$! Guest Artist Sogbety Diomande performs solo jembe during Bademalor, a woman’s dance drum-ming from the Mahouka ethnic group. This dance is performed at night after a hard day’s work or at weddings and other social gatherings.

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CULTURAL AWARENESS

Younge and Badu-Younge trace their interest in enlarging the world’s understanding of its many traditions to early experiences of their own with cultural clashes.

When Younge first arrived in the United States as a music student from Ghana, an American classmate asked how many lions Younge had killed, leaving Younge with the distinct impression that Americans knew little, if anything, about his homeland.

Badu-Younge, born in New York but raised and educated in Canada, was trained in traditional western dance forms such as ballet and jazz. One day, then-U.N. Ambassador for Ghana and family friend Victor Gbeno asked her when she was going to start studying “real dance.”

“By that, he meant Ghanaian dance,” Badu-Younge says.Something about those early experiences got under their

skin. Long before coming to Ohio University, both Younge and Badu-Younge became determined to find ways of using art to teach the world about their culture. Badu-Younge studied music and dance in Ghana, and won awards for her own African dance performances for the Badu Dance Company in Toronto. Younge became an expert in African choral and brass band music and sub-Saharan African music and dance. He performed at festivals around the world, and taught and directed music ensembles at the University of Ghana and West Virginia University.

LESSON ONE

In Younge’s “Music & Arts” class in Robert Glidden Hall, students not only learn how to improvise on percus-sion instruments but also receive an introduction to other forms of African culture, such as storytelling, that fold into

the continent’s music traditions. Reading through the story of Ananse the Trickster, for example, the students take turns read-ing the parts of characters while also setting up an accompanying rhythm on drums.

“You see all your smiles?” Younge asks his students after one particular exercise. “That’s the concept of music; you have to do it for enjoyment.”

Westerners, especially in classical music traditions, he says, empha-size learning music from written scores and strive for “note-perfect performances.” But others, such as Africans, create their traditional music and dance with more improvisation and spontaneity.

“There is no specific term for music in African cultures as it is known in western cultures,” Younge says. “It’s more than what you hear; it involves what you see and feel.”

Younge’s classes are not entirely focused on performance; he guides his students through the rich cultural territory that sur-rounds African music. Students learn about the use of tradition-al instruments in African cultures, the importance of music and dance in church, and the differences and similarities between African church music and western religions.

“There is no specific term for music in Africa as it is known in western cultures. It’s more than what you hear; it involves what you see and feel.” — PASCHAL YOUNGE

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" Ohio University students, including Kalie Metzger, Sarah Hildebrand, and Grace Butler, members of the Ohio University African Ensemble, learn a Pan-African dance technique from Badu-Younge during a rehearsal at the Ridges Auditorium for the 2009 Aza concert.

! Paschal Younge demonstrates the technique of playing the Dumdum drum from Nigeria at the Ridges Auditorium.

“They are inseparable. One cannot just teach the dance without the drumming or the drumming without the dance. From an African’s point of view, it would not be complete.”

“Music is a cultural phenomenon,” he later remarks. “You cannot separate the music from the culture. Different cultures have their own ideas about music. Learning about the music of a particular culture means learning about the people.”

Younge has spent the past 15 years conducting research on Ghanaian music. With support from Ohio University’s Baker Fund, he’s developed a three-volume multimedia guide called Musical Traditions of Ghana (to be published in late 2009) to help other teachers develop their own curricula in African music.

LESSON TWO

Badu-Younge helps her students see the cultural con-text of African dance by giving them the hands-on experience of building instruments, making costumes, designing cloth, and choreographing dances based on

African traditions. She begins her class with a Pan-African dance warm-up activ-

ity designed to familiarize students with proper dance posture, stance, and movement.

— ZELMA BADU-YOUNGE

“My feet are grounded and the rest of my body relaxed,” Badu-Younge says. “I am humbled by this posture, but I also feel a sense of openness, a sense of reverence, and a feeling that African dance is more than just about me.”

Badu-Younge teaches her students about the aesthetic differences between African dance and western forms. For example, African dancers incorporate into their posture a softened “S” curve quite unlike the strong vertical line between the torso and hips that is de rigueur for western ballet dancers. African dancers also move from multiple “centers” of their bodies—moving different parts of the body in new ways and to different rhythms at the same time. The backbone of African dance is the drumming.

“They are inseparable,” says Badu-Younge. “One cannot just teach the dance without the drumming or the drumming without the dance. From an African’s point of view, it would not be complete.”

African music and dance is offered to all Ohio University stu-dents regardless of major. Non-majors are often easier to teach, according to Younge and Badu-Younge, because while majors

have an understanding of certain fundamental movements, they must also learn to apply these movements differently in African dance. A course in African dance became a requirement for all Ohio University dance majors in the 2009-2010 school year.

“Choreographers are working with such a blend of cultures and styles of dance. For students to be competitive in the field, it’s important for them to have exposure to these forms of dance,” says Travis Gatling, the interim director of the School of Dance, who is also interested in seeing the school include in its curriculum newer dance forms such as hip-hop.

REACHING OUT

Younge and Badu-Younge also manage the international dance company Azaguno. In the language of the Ewe people of Ghana, the name means “a master drummer.”

Founded in 2001, Azaguno provides a venue for research, preservation, education, and performance of tradi-tional African music and dance, African American music and dance, and other styles from the Caribbean and Latin America. The group is made up of no more than 25 members who come from locations ranging from New York to Canada, but with the majority from Ohio University.

Successful members from the Ohio University African Ensemble often go on to become members of Azaguno, which performs across the country and around the world. In 2002, Azaguno represented the United States at the FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony in Seoul, Korea.

“Azaguno provides opportunities for students who may not have a career in performance or dance,” explains Badu-Younge. “It gives them experience, and allows them to learn the culture.”

In addition to performing around the world with Azaguno, Badu-Younge and Younge hope to expand the reach of their teaching, research, and creative work through several endeavors. Those include the university’s new African dance course require-ment for dance majors, a certificate course in African music and dance through the African Studies program, and an expanded Ohio University study abroad program in Cuba, Kenya, Canada, and Australia that may include performance opportunities at the Sydney Opera House.

“The African dance form is inviting and gives opportunities for students who might never have ventured into this rich culture from another part of the world,” Badu-Younge says. “They may make some discoveries, including that they have talent they never knew they had.”

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