Adanta Dance Blog

Adanta Dance Performance

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African Dance Classes London

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African Dance Classes London

Adanta African Dance Group offers African dance classes and theatre for people of all ages, cultures and abilities. Our dance classes / workshop in London is a fusion of West and South African, traditional and modern dance forms delivered by professionally trained traditional African dancers and drummers.

Adanta offers exciting, fun all round dance classes for boys and girls aged 10-18 years, offering Classical African dance and drumming classes, taught by experts and professional teachers.

We also offer adult African dance classes with energetic routines inspired by traditional dance forms from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast and South Africa. No experience required, just a desire to have fun whilst keeping fit and healthy.

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Afrobeat Dance Classes

2019-08-19T17:36:00.002+01:00

Adanta Afrobeat Dance Classes

Adanta Dance teaches the basics of Afrobeat dance in its enjoyable dance classes that will show you how to roll your hips, move your body and extend your capabilities.

It’s a fun introduction to working with African dance techniques, from a native’s perspective. We aim to guide our students while giving them a sturdy base to develop their own individual artistic expression.

Our classes are structured to allow participants to develop a deepened awareness of their body through rhythm, movement and the steady beat of the Afrobeat drums.

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African Dancers For Weddings

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Wedding Performances Delivered By Adanta African Dance Group

Adanta African Dance Group is a leading African dance company in London offering African dance performances for special occasions. We are available to be hired for weddings. Adanta is a dance company found in 1997 with the aim of preservation and perpetuation of African culture through the performance of African dance, music and drama.

We provide only the most exquisite African Dance Wedding Entertainment from highly skilled professional dancers, drummers and acrobats. We also offer mind-blowing Corporate Entertainment for African themed events and awards shows.

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At Skegness

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Adanta Dance Group Performance in Skegness

ADANTA (African Dance and Theatre Training Ltd) was founded in 1997. ADANTA tours with a company of six dancers, five drummers and one acrobat/body contortionist. This combination of people offers a variety of workshops, residencies, theatre productions and public performances.

Cultural Dance

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Adanta Dance Group, African Cultural Dancers

ADANTA creates work aimed specifically at enabling the audience to experience the beauty and energy that African dance can generate. Our programs have extensive workshop elements culminating into site-specific events; these can be performed in unusual spaces, environments and high theatres. The size of the troupe can also be altered to suit the specific requirements of event organizers.

African Dance

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Adanta Dance, African Group Dancers

The award winning ADANTA is a cultural organisation dedicated to the preservation, education, and appreciation of traditional African music, dance, theatre, and culture, pursuing its mission through ongoing workshops, performances, youth programs, touring engagements, lecture demonstrations, community outreach, and creative partnership programs with renowned artists and performing companies.

African Dance Examples

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African Dance Examples

Different parts of the body are emphasized by different groups. The upper body is emphasized by the Anlo-Ewe and Lobi of Ghana. Subtle accent of the hips is characteristic of the Kalabari of Nigeria. In Agbor, strong contraction-release movements of the pelvis and upper torso characterize both male and female dancing. The Akan of Ghana use the feet and hands in specific ways.

African Contemporary Dance From Nigeria

The stamping dance known as Ndlamu is done by the Nguni group of tribes, each in their own fashion. It is a secular dance performed by young men in single or double line. Different tempos, manners of stamping the ground, ending the dance, and ways of holding their dance sticks are used by each tribe: the Itlangwini from Southern Natal; the Baca from the Eastern Cape Province; the Mpondo and Mpondomisi from further south; and perhaps best known, the Zulu.

Adumu is a Maasai dance which is performed during Eunoto, the coming-of-age ceremony of warriors. This dance, also referred to as aigus, or “the jumping dance” by non-Maasai (both adumu and aigus are Maa verbs meaning “to jump” with adumu meaning “To jump up and down in a dance”) has made Maasai warriors known for this competitive jumping, which is frequently photographed.

A circle is formed by the warriors, and one or two at a time will enter the center to begin jumping while maintaining a narrow posture, never letting their heels touch the ground. Members of the group may raise the pitch of their voices based on the height of the jump.

Kpanlogo comes from Ghana, more specifically the Ga ethnic group. This dance started in the capital city of Accra, but now it is enjoyed throughout the country. Kpanlogo is known as a highlife dance form performed to conga-like drums.

The music of Kpanlogo is especially important. E.T. Mensah is considered the king of dance band highlife, and played in many bands and locations. Kpanlogo is a fairly recent dance and started around 1940 after World War II, which is when the dance band highlife scene picked up recognition.

Odette Blum talks about the movements. There is a free-flowing motion to this dance, with arms swinging around. There is no stillness in this dance, the free-flowing motion, of a move either beginning or ending, fills pauses. The torso acts as the stronghold base of this dance, since the center of gravity shifts rapidly from one foot to the other.

Master African Dancers

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Master African Dancers

Master dancers and drummers are particular about the learning of the dance exactly as taught. Children must learn the dance exactly as taught without variation. Improvisation or a new variation comes only after mastering the dance, performing, and receiving the appreciation of spectators and the sanction of village elders. “Musical training” in African societies begins at birth with cradle songs, and continues on the backs of relatives both at work and at festivals and other social events. Throughout western and central Africa child’s play includes games that develop a feeling for multiple rhythms.

Bodwich, an early (circa 1800) European observer, noted that the musicians maintained strict time (i.e. concern for the basic pulse or beat), “and the children will move their heads and limbs, while on their mother’s backs, in exact unison with the tune which is playing.” The sounding of three beats against two is experienced in everyday life and helps develop “a two-dimensional attitude to rhythm”.

The most widely used musical instrument in Africa is the human voice. Nomadic groups such as the Maasai do not traditionally use drums yet in villages throughout the continent the sound and rhythm of the drum expresses the mood of the people.

In an African community, coming together in response to the beating of the drum is an opportunity to give one another a sense of belonging and of solidarity, a time to connect with each other and be part of a collective rhythm of the life in which young and old, rich and poor, men and women are all invited to contribute to the society.

Aduma Maasai Traditional Dance

Shoulders, chest, pelvis, arms, legs etc., may move with different rhythms in the music. Dancers in Nigeria commonly combine at least two rhythms in their movement, and the blending of three rhythms can be seen among highly skilled dancers. Articulation of as many as four distinct rhythms is rare. They may also add rhythmic components independent of those in the music.

Very complex movements are possible even though the body does not move through space. Dancers are able to switch back and forth between rhythms without missing movements.

The drumming represents an underlying linguistic text that guides the dancing performance but most meaning comes from nonverbal cues and metalanguage of the performers. The spontaneity of performance creates an impression of extemporaneity, yet it is not to emphasize the individual and bolster her or his ego but to preserve the community and mediate the audience and the performer interaction.

Traditional Dance In Africa

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Traditional Dance In Africa

Traditional dance in Africa occurs collectively, expressing the life of the community more than that of individuals or couples. Early commentators consistently commented on the absence of close couple dancing: such dancing was thought immoral in many traditional African societies.

In all sub-Saharan African dance, there seems to be no evidence for sustained, one-to-one male-female partnering anywhere before the late colonial era when it was apparently considered in distinctly poor taste. For the Yoruba, to give a specific example, touching while dancing is not common except in special circumstances.

Cameroon Dancer

The only partner dance associated with African dances would be the Bottle Dance of the Mankon People in the Northwest Region of Cameroon or the Assiko from the Douala people that involve an interaction of Man and Woman and the way that they charm each other.

Emphasizing individual talent, Yoruba dancers and drummers, bass example, express communal desires, values, and collective creativity. Dances are often segregated by gender, reinforcing gender roles in children and other community structures such as kinship, age and status are also often reinforced. Many dances are performed by only males or females, indicating strong beliefs about what being male or female means and some strict taboos about interaction.

Dances celebrate the passage from childhood to adulthood or spiritual worship. Young girls of the Lunda of Zambia spend months practicing in seclusion for their coming of age ritual. Boys show off their stamina in highly energetic dances, providing a means of judging physical health.

Sub-Saharan Africa Dance

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Sub-Saharan African Dancers

African dance refers mainly to the dance of Sub-Saharan Africa, and more appropriately African dances because of the many cultural differences in musical and movement styles. These dances must be viewed in close connection with Sub-Saharan African dance and music traditions and Bantu cultivation of rhythm. African dance utilizes the concept of as well as total body articulation.

Kankouran West African Dance

Photo shows members from the Kankouran West African Dance Company perform during a ceremony in the Rose Garden, White House in 2007.

Dances teach social patterns and values and help people work, mature, praise or criticize members of the community while celebrating festivals and funerals, competing, reciting history, proverbs and poetry; and to encounter gods. African dances are largely participatory, with spectators being part of the performance.

With the exception of some spiritual, religious or initiation dances, there are traditionally no barriers between dancers and onlookers. Even ritual dances often have a time when spectators participate. west African dance is more hip hop and up beat.

At Wedding

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Adanta Dance Group exists to explore and express an idea through dance, which reflects its African roots, society and way of life. Its philosophy is to create innovative work by using sources rooted in traditional African culture and to communicate the diversity of dance vocabulary within the continent to its wide range of audiences.