Ewe music and dance have often been viewed as emblematic of African culture in general due to the significant academic attention they have received. At least since A.M. Jones’ groundbreaking work in the 1950s with an Ewe master drummer, scholars have been fascinated with the complex polyrhythms and lexical referents of this music. Despite the abundant literature on Ewe culture, there remain noticeable gaps in our understanding of this group’s music and dance traditions. Redressing such a deficiency, ethnomusicologist James Burns offers the first detailed examination of female perspectives, roles, and performance practices within Ewe musical/dance contexts.
Through a careful ethnographic approach, Burns focuses on a dance-drumming organization, called a Haborbor, in the cosmopolitan town of Dzodze, located in eastern Ghana. Facilitated by his long association with members of this community, his study is able to intimately reveal the financial, social, political, and religious issues that profoundly impact women’s lives there, and the ways in which these women express and address their quotidian concerns through music and dance. Burns illustrates that women in Dzodze see their artistic performances as a form of public complaint and redress demonstrating and renewing their beliefs while helping to strengthen social bonds between them (1). By including extensive excerpts of interviews with Dzodze women, as well as detailed analyses of their songs, Burns shows how women use music and dance to negotiate their particular daily struggles with polygamy, gendered power dynamics, childbirth, domestic violence, raising families, and spiritual belief.
The introduction begins by discussing the enormous impact of Christianity in Dzodze, noting that its proliferation, along with Western education, has significantly diminished the prominence of indigenous African cultural practices. Building on work by Ruth Finnegan, Dell Hymes, and others, Burns employs a performative approach to oral literature, arguing that women’s songs dynamically “document the struggle to keep traditional music relevant in the changing times of a contemporary African town” (18). Burns furthermore asserts that, through the act of singing, women are able to “re-brand” indigenous African dance-drumming, rescuing it from the demonization it faces from Christian authorities, and transforming these “traditional” cultural forms into potent symbols of modern Ewe identity.
Beginning with some of the broad issues that affect women in Dzodze, the first chapter situates the lives of Haborbor members within a socio-cultural and historical context. A brief history of Dzodze reveals its transformation from a rural village to a contemporary cosmopolitan center of commerce that is inextricably connected to global flows of media and capital. The remainder of the chapter examines conceptions and expressions of gender in Ewe culture, including women’s roles in Ewe society and the power dynamics between the sexes within this ethnic group. While noting that women have a certain autonomy and power due to their role as traders, spiritual leaders, and caregivers, Burns explains that women also struggle with a lack of community support for their formal education, which diminishes their ability to achieve true financial independence. Consequently, the author notes, Ewe women often resort to prostitution or endure the hardships of polygamy to provide for themselves and their families.
The next chapter brings the reader into the center of the dance space, illustrating the complex social dynamics that govern activities within such contexts. Continuing his focus on gender, Burns examines the roles of women within three specific types of performance groups—District Funeral Ensembles, Sacred Music Ensembles, and dance-drumming clubs called Haborbor. Through this exploration we learn that, while women often choose not to engage in drumming during performances, they often comprise a majority of the population at Ewe cultural events, creating a stirring polyphony of voices and gourd rattles that dominates the sonic landscape. Given this demographic, women are considered by the author to be primarily responsible for keeping Ewe traditional culture alive in contemporary Ghana.
Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the members of the Dzigbordi Haborbor in Dzodze, including its drummers, dancers, song leaders, and chorus singers, after which Burns details the founding and development of this ensemble. Subsequently, with an abundance of musical transcriptions and analyses, Burns focuses on the technical details of one particularly prominent dance style known as atsia, setting up his later examination of female artistry within this genre. The remainder of this chapter closely examines one particularly emblematic funeral performance of the Dzigbordi, illustrating the ebb and flow of such events and the variety of music and dance performed therein.
The last chapter is by far the longest, intimately exploring the life histories and performance practices of four women within the Dzigbordi ensemble. These case studies serve to show how women use their artistic creativity within the atsia dance genre to redress their personal daily social struggles and demonstrate their individuality through their unique styles. While some might find the analyses of music here to be overly technical, they nevertheless painstakingly illustrate the complex ways in which performers expertly mold the atsia dance to suit their personal needs. Through their individual artistic expressions women are empowered to voice their critique of social issues which shape their daily lives in Dzodze.
Throughout the text Burns refers the reader to a self-produced DVD documentary included with the book. Capturing the intimacy of women’s everyday lives in Dzodze, this nearly 90-minute ethnographic film paints a vivid picture of the Haborbor group, the town in which it exists, and its members. The four case studies outlined in chapter 4 receive special attention here, allowing one to see and hear the artistry and personal stories of these Ewe women. In all, by focusing on the ways in which females use music and dance performance to mediate issues that are of particular importance to them, Burns’ study significantly contributes to the scholarly understanding of Ewe expressive culture.
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[Review length: 949 words • Review posted on December 17, 2009]