Dance and Culture Blended in Cameroon
Dancing in Cameroon has always been an informal thing with very little interest in it. A lot of factors like money made it so. Keeping aside the cultural associations that do carry out traditional dance training, there is no single institution that offers dance as a course or subject whereas this is taught in other countries and students enroll into universities just to read for a degree in dance.
Short traditional dance by Bamenda people called ejiangi
With the Cameroon music industry in a renaissance now, a lot of people are now getting involved with dance as few theatres are opening up, and most music stars are identifying themselves with particular dancers. Dance as a profession is what some people are thinking of and we have one of Cameroon’s best dancers in the person of Aline Snuff, for her stunning displays with famous Cameroonian star Mr. Leo. This lady is pursuing a career in dance and many of her peers are beginning to look up to her as they now see that dancing pays the bills too.
Watch Aline Snuff Twerk.
As Cameroon’s traditional dances follow strict choreography, demanding dancers to send out the message through moving different parts of the body and concentrating motion on specific parts, it is no longer a surprise to see how dance goddess like Aline Snuff has mastered these moves and now improvise them into the popular western musical genres.
In a country and region where dance has always been attributed to cultural and traditional displays, a new wave of wind is certainly blowing as people once integrated their cultural dances to Cameroon's popular genres of Makossa and Bitkusi but now Hip Hop, RnB, Pop, Rap and Nigerian highlife music has taken over the industry, and in a country with more than two hundred tribes speaking different languages and with different cultures, they is need for certain breed of dancers because all these musical genres have been modified to fit the country’s diverse culture. Dancers like Aline Snuff and co have discovered this and continue to work relentlessly so as to live up to expectation.
A typical Rap artist with Cameroon blended in his music will be no other person than Jovi of New Bell Music label and other New Bell artists like Reniss. If you love to see for yourself how this story is unfolding in Cameroon, then you just need to watch them as they do it.
With the Cameroon music industry in a renaissance now, a lot of people are now getting involved with dance as few theatres are opening up, and most music stars are identifying themselves with particular dancers. Dance as a profession is what some people are thinking of and we have one of Cameroon’s best dancers in the person of Aline Snuff, for her stunning displays with famous Cameroonian star Mr. Leo. This lady is pursuing a career in dance and many of her peers are beginning to look up to her as they now see that dancing pays the bills too.
As Cameroon’s traditional dances follow strict choreography, demanding dancers to send out the message through moving different parts of the body and concentrating motion on specific parts, it is no longer a surprise to see how dance goddess like Aline Snuff has mastered these moves and now improvise them into the popular western musical genres.
In a country and region where dance has always been attributed to cultural and traditional displays, a new wave of wind is certainly blowing as people once integrated their cultural dances to Cameroon's popular genres of Makossa and Bitkusi but now Hip Hop, RnB, Pop, Rap and Nigerian highlife music has taken over the industry, and in a country with more than two hundred tribes speaking different languages and with different cultures, they is need for certain breed of dancers because all these musical genres have been modified to fit the country’s diverse culture. Dancers like Aline Snuff and co have discovered this and continue to work relentlessly so as to live up to expectation.
A typical Rap artist with Cameroon blended in his music will be no other person than Jovi of New Bell Music label and other New Bell artists like Reniss. If you love to see for yourself how this story is unfolding in Cameroon, then you just need to watch them as they do it.
Comments
Post a Comment