Towards Designing Choreography Curriculum Template for African Contemporary Dance Using Dayo Liadi’s Olori-Oko Dance Performance

Abstract

Modern dance techniques such as choreography gives the genre a unique language that can be used to expand the dance technique and dance composition as used by choreographers. Dayo Liadi as a choreographer and study in this article has used contemporary dance genre of body gestures to communicate his message through signs and cultural symbols, towards the appreciation from the audience. However, there are many thematic areas including space, shapes, images, body movement, and other paraphernalia employed in the style called contemporary dance type of choreography. Thus, all of these must be preserved and replicated as unique dance techniques. Therefore, the need to study and propose an indigenous choreography curriculum that emanates from Dayo Liadi’s creative work i.e. Olori Oko performance. The study is anchored on Michael Forkine’s Perspective of Adorno Theodor’s Philosophical Aesthetic theory. This is with the view to incorporate home-grown curriculum contents into dance studies in theatre schools in Nigeria and in Africa. The study adopted quantitative research method, involving participants’ observation, transcription and content analysis of lyrics and video using a checklist to conduct thorough video pre-view and review of the choreographic work. Major findings revealed a need for collaboration and performances to sharpen and widen the horizon of the artistic and creativity appreciation, with the view to incorporate new dance techniques into the Nigerian and African dance techniques such as incorporated in Dayo Liadi’s creative work. The study recommend direct implementation or adoption of the proposed curriculum template as part of choreography dance studies in theatre curriculum among departments in higher institutions Nigeria and Africa.