GHANA AND TRADITIONAL DANCES

the flag of Ghana
map of Ghana showing regional demarcations
Ghana
             and
  traditional
       dances





Ghana as a nation, has many ethnic groups across.
A country with many different languages with the Akans being the majority of about 49 percent tribal group representation.

The country has 64 different languages in all and all the groups have their unique culture and traditions. as a matter of fact, all the tribes have a festival they celebrate and this is where and when they exhibit their peculiar or unique traditional dance forms which are mostly the musical type.

It is also a fact that the people do not only enjoy and entertain themselves with these daces on festive occasions, but under other special functions.

In this write up we would like to give a brief background to just a handful of the dance forms Ghana has which include: KPANLOGO, ASAFO, AGBADZA, DAMBA, GOME, BORBORBOR, AND KLAMAH DANCE WHICH IS TODAY'S DIPO DANCE.



KPANLOGO -

This is one of the traditional dances of the Ga people of Accra in the capital of Ghana. Kpanlogo which goes with drumming is reported to have been the most recent of all the Ga Mashie dance forms or musical types



          THE DANCE AS IT IS PERFORMED AT A STATE FUNCTION

The kpanlogo dance is an off shoot of GOME, KOLOMASHIE, AND KONKOMA. It started in the early days of Ghana's independence. it entertained everyone from Ga Mashie.
The originator called Otoo Lincoln created the dance from an "Ananse's story he was told by the grand father.

The story was about three girls who were born triplets to chief of a town with the names: Kpanlogo, Mma Mma, and Algodzan.

These names were unknown to anyone in that town and so for any man to who has interest in marrying the triplets, they should be able to mention or tell the names of the girls and they will have the chance to then marry them.

For this reason, a man who was interested in the girls decided to disguise himself and pretended to be a mad person and visited the home of the girls. on their compound the mad man asked for water to drink from the girls who were all present at the time he entered the premises.

with his request, the girls who were all expecting any of them to go give the man the water started calling out their names themselves and this afforded the pretending lunatic to hear, know, and recorded their names in his mind.

This pretentious madman who because doesn't want to forget the names of the girls, devised a means to keep the names in his head which was through singing theses sounds which were the first two and three letters of their names, "Kp", "Mma", "Al"

Knowing their names now therefore, he returned to the family of the girls later as a very normal person, saw their father the chief and told him his intention for the visit. He was tested accordingly and he passed the test. on that basis therefore he was allowed to marry the triplets.

Otoo Lincoln, after hearing this story, told it to his siblings dancing and singing whiles his friend drums along.








KPANLOGO PERFORMANCE AT THE RIVER SIDE 





The kpanlogo dance was considered  a dance from the youth which emerged from the streets of Accra just after independence of Ghana. It therefore symbolized the youth and independence of a young nation.





AT A  PRACTICE; KPANLOGO DRUMMING AND DANCING





This musical dance form was embraced by the people of Accra who performed the dance at various functions like funerals, and sate functions on different occasions. Kpanlogo is currently popular and continues to be performed at social and state functions.
PERFORMANCE AT STATE FUNCTION



                                                                                                                                  STORY BY: JOSEPH DAVID CLOTTEY

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