The men dance to modernized Native American music with decorated hoops. I felt the hoops in this sense were symbolic. In Native American culture, everything is a circle. The sun, earth, and the life cycle all go round. This idea is also brought out with their use of the drum. The hoops are not only pleasing to watch but also tie in a big message for the audience.
While we touched a little bit of South African music we never got is to the popular genres. In fact, we haven't yet identified any genres. I wanted to know what kind of music kids today were listening to in Africa. So I went online and discovered these ten genres that are popular in Africa:
Highlife - West Africa
Coupe De Cale - West and Central Africa
African Hip Hop - Africa
Bongo Flava - East Africa
Taarab - East and North Africa
Kizomba - Southern Africa
Ndombolo - Central and East Africa
Makossa - Central Africa
Kwaito - Southern Africa
Afrobeat - West Africa
These genres are much more westernized than the traditional style I've listened to before. One thing that I noticed that both have in common is the fun complex beat of the genres. The video below gives examples and a little bit of detail to each of these genres.
The final thing I found just so happens to be an instrument. Practically all the instruments we have covered have been percussion instruments, voices, and like one or two string instruments. Well, I found a wind instrument called an algaita. It is an instrument that is very similar to the oboe.
Like many Native American and other African instruments, the algaita is made of wood and easy to carry around. And like the oboe or the shawm, the algaita is double reeded and is narrow at the top while widening towards the end. Although the oboe does sound less duck-ish than the algaita in my opinion.
I had absolutely no idea that hoop was incorporated into Native American dance, but that has to be one of the coolest things I have heard of lately. I totally agree that there is some symbolism with the shape of the hoop and their ideologies; what an awesome find!
ReplyDeleteThe hoop dance is really interesting. I have no idea that Native Americans have hoop dance. I wonder what the meaning behind it is.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love the hoop dancing! I honestly didn't know I needed to see that until today! And the fact that you found all those genres of African contemporary music is amazing! It's cool to see how everything ties together with the complex beats and how you can make those connections! Also, I agree with you, the algaita does sound duckish!
ReplyDelete-Katie Edge
The algaita sounds like a really interesting instrument. How they make these instruments out of wood is so fascinating to me, because 1.they are designed really cool and 2. they sound great.
ReplyDeleteI love how you included so many videos and visuals! I really enjoyed watching the video with the hoops, great twist on what we saw in class.
ReplyDeleteThe hola hoop dancing is cool and I like the music they dance to very modern and up to beat. With all the African genres being so interesting and cool, my favorites are the African hip hop and Afrobeat. The song of the instrument is very cool and sounds like the instruments used to bring out the snakes in another culture.
ReplyDeleteThe videos that you posted are amazing. The main instrument use in African music are drums to create a really cool beat to the song
ReplyDeleteAll the videos and visuals you posted were awesome! The video on the hoops was really interesting and I liked how you related it back to what we learned in class.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Joanna Norwood posted a hoop dancer as well, in the context of her bit on Native American Two-Spirit people--you might enjoy it. And while it's true that we hadn't discussed many wind or string instruments (outside of the kora) when you did this blog, things are about to change as we move to the Middle East and China. The folk oboe you post is much more common in Arabic communities in Northern Africa--I'll bring mine in next week :-)
ReplyDelete