Female voices from an Ewe dance-drumming community in Ghana
Subtitle: our music has become a divine spirit
By: James Burns.
Series: SOAS musicology series
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 215
ISBN-13: 9780754664956
Subjects: Dzigbordi Habo̳bo̳; Ewe (African people) -- Music -- History and criticism; Music -- Social aspects -- Ghana -- Dzodze; Women musicians -- Ghana -- Dzodze
Description: A detailed ethnography of a group of female musicians from the Dzigbordi community dance-drumming club from the rural town of Dzodze, located in South-Eastern Ghana. Dzigbordi was specifically chosen because of the author's long association with the group members, and because it is part of a genre known as adekede, or female songs of redress, where women musicians critique gender relations in society. Burns uses audio and video interviews, recordings of rehearsals and performances and detailed collaborative analyses of song texts, dance routines and performance practice to address important methodological shifts in ethnomusicology that outline a more humanistic perspective of music cultures.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Daughters of the drum : the social environment of female artists in Dzodze; title: The dance space : music associations, territories and events; title: We are a communinty dance-drumming group : the Dzigbordi Habo̳bo̳ of Dzodze; title: Doing it for everyone to see : the oral artistry of Dzigbordi in performance.