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How to learn Afro dance?

African dance is a great and fun activity. There are several and great benefits to learning dancing and this also includes African dance. But how do you go about it?

The first thing to understand when learning any type of dance is to count the beats. Music is composed of a number of beats, this is called metric, and the speed of the beats is called tempo.

Dance music usually features three, four or six beats per unit of count, or measures. African dance groups two groups of three beats, making the African dance pattern a two three-beat, or 6/8 dance. So the first thing to understand is how to count these six beats that make the African dance pattern.

Then follows rhythmic sensibility, which is the ability to feel the constant beats of music with our bodies. This might be particularly hard in African dance since rhythmically it is very intricate. I think the best way to work this through is to count the two main beats of the 6/8 metric.

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What are 3 characteristics of African dance?

The first and most noticeable characteristic of African dance is the use of drums. The most popular drum is Djembe. The Djembe is a very popular drum from Africa. It has goat skin on the top and it is made out of one solid piece of wood. It has ropes to keep it tight and to control the tuning. It has three sounds: bass, tone and slap, which are bass, medium and high.

People play djembe for the celebrations, for happy dances and for weddings. Djembe comes from Guinea, Mali and Ivory Coast.

Another characteristic of African dance is the rhythm. African dance is polyrhythmic, that means that there are multiple rhythms working together. What makes this polyrhythmic is the different metrics in music. Let’s take a look at the most common one: 6/8.

When you play a 6/8 metric, you are playing in the duration of six beats equivalent to eighth-notes. These six eighth-notes are divided into groups of three, and so we get two groups of three eighth-notes. But polyrhythmic music involves more than those two groups. It can divide the six beats in three groups of two eighth-notes and that metric is called 3/4. So 6/8 and 3/4 at the same time. 

Finally, the last key characteristic besides drums and polyrhythms in African dance is Straight and circular formations. This is quite interesting, because most dances known in western world are couple dances. African dance involves a whole group and there are no dance expressions in dances from Africa that break the group into couples.

What is the history of African dancing?

African dance might be one of the oldest forms of dance in the world. These dances were an expression of spirituality and celebration.

The dances of each tribe serve the purpose of helping cross the communication barrier. Tribes would have different languages and dialects. Dance helped as a way of connecting tribes that were not able to communicate between each other.

African dance was then taken to the Western world when the slave trade was imposed in the world. And this rhythm and ways of dancing influenced America and Europe.

African dance eventually lost its spiritual character and it became more of an art form, spectacle rather than ritual.

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