Conference Agenda
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Agenda Overview |
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Special Presentation - Zambian Traditional Dance
Nasilele Imbwela is a Zambian music educator and curriculum designer who works with the Zambian Ministry of Education. Committed to promoting Zambian traditional music and dance, she presents two traditional Zambian dances in Workshop format. | ||
| Session Abstract | ||
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Music in African plays a very important role, from birth to death, rite passage of life. This music is passed from generation to generation through oral tradition.
My research involved young people between the ages of fourteen to eighteen years. In Zambia, these are learners who are in Secondary Schools.
It's policy that all learners from Early Childhood Education to Grade Seven should learn Zambia Traditional Music.
However, in Secondary School it's optional. As a Music Curriculum Development Specialist I wondered whether this Music was imposed on the twenty first century learners or not. Therefore I embarked on this Research.
The result of the Research shocked me, more than three quarters learners from a sample size of one hundred and fifty from children representing seventy two ethnic groups of Zambia appreciated this music.
There are songs for story telling. These stories are done around fire in the night after supper, it common in villages. Young people are entertained by the senior members of the village.
There are songs for playing when there is a full moon. Children come out and play games, for example hide and seek.
Traditional Music prepares young people for life in the community. There are songs specifically for girls and those for boys. Those songs teach girls what it is expected of them as wives and mothers. Similarly boys to be husbands and fathers.
There are songs to teach good morals. For instance, respect for others, working together during planting of crops in the field and during harvest, beer parties, taking care of those who are not well.
However, there are songs to rebuke laziness, sleeping around with many men or many women. Songs against gossiping , stealing and abuse of substances.
They are songs for worshiping spirits( as Africans had their gods before the introduction of Christian and other religions.
They are songs for funerals. These songs provoke mourners to cry more as they bid farewell to their departed. They believe they dead, come back as animals. They believe in life after death. | ||
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