Dances are part of our socio cultural identities in Nigeria. They are performed for different purposes and at different settings such as home, social gatherings, religious centres, schools, concert halls, dance halls and theatres.  Some dance steps are peculiar to certain ethnic groups within each geo-political zone in Nigeria. These peculiarities of dance steps are seemingly going into oblivion. This paper seeks to find out reasons for the erosive state of these dance steps and reasons for the consequent emergence of modified dance steps. Primary data were collected through oral interview of selected dance groups in Ile-Ife, Ibadan, Ijaw, Calabar, Istekiri and Jos metropolis.  Secondary data were collected by reviewing works of scholars in published books and articles from national and international journals. The findings reveal that the emergence of modified dance steps has now become an accompaniment to popular music as against the conventional concept of music as an accompaniment to dance. These dance steps become more popular than the traditional dances and adapted as homely dances in all the selected geo-political zones in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the emergence of modified dance steps has eroded and sniffed the dance peculiarities of these towns as a result of popular music artiste’s quest for identity and unity of dance steps to their music.   Key words: Appraisal, evolution, dance, accompaniment, popular music.

This paper is an ethnographic examination and exploration of the power politics of the Ar Rinci Foirne and the subsequent changes in perceived nationalism, stylizations, and memory of Irish dance as it refers to both the practiced repertoire and textual archive of ceili dancing within Ireland and the Diaspora. The researcher examined each iteration of the Ar Rinci Fiorne antecedent and relevant texts the socio-political climate following the Irish Civil War, and the aims of the Gaelic League to determine how the textual archiving through the 2014 edition of “Ar Rinci Foirne'' affected embodied memory of Irish Ceili dancing. Theories of transculturation, ethnography, post-structuralist criticism, archiving with thematic and chronological examination of texts were utilized with a qualitative methodology. Through the intentional inclusion and exclusion of dances, the Ar Rinci Foirne functions as codification and propaganda of Irishness through dance, while systematically altering and erasing embodied memory of ceili dances within Ireland and the Diaspora.   Key words: Irish dance, ceili, ethnography, embodied memory, folk dance.

This paper aims at examining the practical use of the melon dance by Basarwa (San) of Kaudwane village in the Kweneng West District of Botswana. Basarwa is a group of people who originate from the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR). Taking into consideration the Basarwa traditional way of life, this research focuses mainly on women and girls as the main participants of the melon dance music genre. Some authors refer to this music as a game, whereas others refer to it as a musical genre. Basarwa women and girls have used this musical genre over the years to celebrate their hard work of search and gathering of veldkost from edible or medicinal plants. After two – three days of cumbersome work of gathering these plants, Basarwa women return to their place of residence to celebrate through melon song and dance. Data were gathered through several visits to Kaudwane village in 2008, 2010 and 2013 respectively to validate facts on this musical genre. Informants gathered at the village Kgotla (village customary administration center) for oral interviews by the researchers. It should be noted that the majority of the Kaudwane Basarwa speak Sesarwa which is their native language. To overcome this language barrier, a young lady who is the village pre-school teacher acted as an interpreter to the researchers. In addition to oral interviews, there were also video recordings and information from other repositories such as journal articles, books and internet searches. The informants also offered to practically perform the melon dance for the researchers to observe. Key words: Tsutsube, Melon Dance, Women, Basarwa, Kaudwane, Kgalagadi Desert.

This research aims to study the perception of relative durational and cross-rhythm patterns when they are converted into melodic or harmonic patterns. Twenty-four international students from Groningen conservatoire were given twenty- four trials; twelve deals with their melodic/harmonic perception ability and the other twelve deals with the ability to perceive the converted rhythmical patterns. The purpose of the twelve first trials was to see if the perception ability patterns within a single property (part A) are done in the rational perception ability patterns of relative durations to melody or cross rhythms to harmony (part B). This was not the case, although there were some notable exceptions. The results in PART B had a great variety ranging from 4 to 87.5% accuracy rate, pointing that the relative difficulty of the trials was of great importance. If the comparison patterns are complex and have common elements with the standard pattern, then the accuracy of the subjects decreases. This contrasts the significant accuracy scores if the comparison patterns differ much in complexity and have no common elements with the standard pattern. Key words: Ratios, rhythmical patterns, Gestalt, perceptual invariance, intramodal transfer, rational scales, cross-properties matching.

It is seen how state policies are effective in education when it is thought that education is organized according to the principle of making the individual useful for the community. Given that education policies should be effective in all areas of education, music education is expected to be present in a common political attitude in the fields of general, ethical and professional music education (Küçükahmet, 2000) . It can be said that the most obvious change in the music education policies came with the Republican era in Turkey. These innovations was not enough only in state administration and social life. Atatürk, also wanted to reach a level of contemporary civilization in cultural matters. Taking Turkish music to the international level by taking advantage of the music, knowledge and techniques of the West constitutes the aim of Ataturk's work on music. National fine sentiments, high sayings about thought, gathering of sayings; We need to handle them the day before according to the final musical bases. In this way, Turkish national music can rise, it can take place in international music” he said. And development politics have been prepared in the field of music as well. Accordingly, there is a need for a music education development policy with continuity and sustainability in the context of today's music education. In this direction; Evaluating the reflections of educational development policies in the Republican period on music education and developing suggestions constitute the main problem of this research. This research: consideration of the developmental policies of music education applied in the Republican period with an inductionist approach is important from the point of view of the general view of music education policies of the Republican period, and as a source for researchers and field experts. In this research, it tried to describe the situation regarding the music education policies of the Republican period. Research is a descriptive screening model suitable for qualitative research approach. Key words: Education, music, music education, culture, music culture.

The study is set out from an intervention perspective using music and dance as a vehicle for enhancing the enrollment drive and retention of girls in basic schools. It was a qualitative research under the auspices of “Ghana Wins” project that involved pupils, parents and teachers of New Winneba Municipal Assembly Primary and Junior High School to deepen their understanding on how Music and Dance has the potency of attracting children to school. Through the concept of interculturalism in music the study highlights the challenges of girl-child education in Ghana and documents the needed information, materials and guides that may help teachers in basic schools to intercede appropriately. Data were sourced by interview and participant observation. Findings of the paper provide assistance for both specialist and non-specialist music teachers at the basic level to integrate their lessons with Music and Dance for optimum sustenance of interest in school among pupils. Key words: Music, dance, New Winneba, enrollment, Ghana Wins, interculturalism, girl child.

Juju music as a unique Nigerian popular genre has so many African phenomena inculcated into its performance though it has some western touches in its scale and some other features. Hence this paper examined one of the African phenomena – directing, in the performance of juju music. This write up was based on the conducted research and in order to present a genuine report, live performances and the recordings of juju exponents such as King Sunny Ade, Obey Fabiyi, and others were collected and analyzed. It was discovered that directing is rooted in African performance. It is locally known among the Yoruba people of Nigeria as “titokun” – directing and “atokun” – director. The same ideology was brought into the performance of Juju music. At first, Juju musicians employed western musical instrument such as Guitar to achieve directing and later began to make use of more African oriented media. Hence, three basic forms of directing were identified as prominent ways of directing the performance of Juju music. This paper concluded by submitting that ‘directing’ is quite different in concept and practice from the western form of conducting. Hence, there is need for standardization of processes of the concept in terms of usage, application of terms, and definition of terminologies in use as further research and modification of terms are practically inevitable. Key words: Juju music, directing, titokun, atokun

  When the music moves you, you dance. The bodily movement that develops in response to music is what is here considered “dance.” Philosophers have long understood music as possessing the power to move us. This paper employs Heinrich Wolfflin’s theory of “sympathetic modeling”—a theory recently validated by neuroscientists’ discovery of mirror neurons in humans—and Antonio Damasio’s neurobiological model of emotion to establish the mediating links between music and the bodily movements made in response. The first “motion” elicited by hearing music is, as Wolfflin suggested, an unconscious “sympathetic modeling,” an internal vocalization of what is heard; this activity involves muscular expansions and contractions. Signals of muscle movement are relayed to the brain by receptor cells imbedded in the muscles. In complex responses, the brain receives patterns of movement from throughout the entire body. When these whole-body kinesthetic sensations are made conscious as perceptions of a unified self, they enter awareness as subjectively felt emotion: the felt response to music. Such patterns of muscular stretching can be abstracted from the sort of external experience that produces emotion in ordinary life experience and reproduced at will. Thus, a dancer, by deliberately reproducing a pattern of muscle stretching, can re-create a chosen specific emotion. This activity constitutes “expressing” emotion in bodily movement. Performed in response to the emotion elicited by music, it is the expressive gesture of dance. One viewing the dance “understands” the emotion expressed by, once again, employing sympathetic modeling to reconstruct the internal pattern of movement associated with that emotion. In popular, social, dancing, dancers model one another’s movements and, together, model the muscle tension patterns of particular rhythms and melodic lines; this situation is easily accounted for by what is now known about mirror neurons. Neuroscience thus explains what happens when the music moves you.   Key words: Emotion, movement, music, dance, aesthetics, neuroscience.

Contemporary Ghanaians seem to have turned away from expressing or otherwise patronising their cultural eroticism or integrating it successfully in modern dynamic lifestyles. This research focuses on erotic expressions in the Adowa dance of the Asante by examining the sensual characteristics of the dance, a resurrection of awareness hopefully will be highlighted for possible integration into contemporary forms of cultural education and entertainment. The interviewees’ accounts on their knowledge on Asante’s cultural eroticism will buttress my own experiences in living with and observing them. As culture and practice, the study throws light on arm gestures in a descriptive call and response between a male and a female performer accompanying twists and turns of the body, the costumes and adornment for either dancers accentuating the erogenous zones, song lyrics of mildly sensual ones to highly erotic ones and drum messages which are equally titillating. These findings will support documentations such as “Black Eros: Sexual customs of Africa from prehistory to the present day” (Rachiwiltz, 1967), “Symbolic movements in Ghanaian dances” (Ampofo-Duodo, 1980), and “The Ghana dance ensemble” (Seavoy n. d.) which focused one way or the other on Ghanaian dances and Africans sexuality.These aspects are closely related to the ethical and aesthetic principles that are common to most cultural performances, rooted in the Asante cultural tradition.    Key words: Cultural eroticism, adowa dance, sexuality, asante, and Ghana.