Kunama-Folklore
Part 3, Part 2 ,Part 1
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Part 3 : HAGNGNI OR HIGNGNI
HAGNGNI OR HIGNGNI is one of those borrowed dances, by the Kunama people, very likely, from their neighbouring Sudanese Nubians or Takururi folk groups.
Because of its foreign origin, this dance is not tied to a particular event like, for instance "ULEDA" which is (and should) be performed only on the occasions of the death, burial and memorial of elderly Kunama persons.
HAGNGNI is therefore, performed mostly by the young people at any and in their leasure times.
This dance does not require any sound of drums;
it is accompanied only by a rhythmical clapping of hands by the female dancers who also function as lead singers.
"Hagngni" begins with the leading singer introducing the refrain of the song to which the partecipants respond in chorus.
As it is a dance performed in pairs, the female dancer is the one who first steps into the dance floor thus challenging any of the present young male dancers.
The rhythm of "HAGNGNI" could be described as that of an accelerated "REGGAE".
She opens the dance by beating first her right or left foot, crosses her leg over the other, beats the floor again with the same foot, lifts the other leg and repeats the cicle.
The male dancer follows her partner by co-ordinating his feet-beatings with those of the female dancer so that they both beat their feet and cross their legs over concomitantly.
Their feet-steppings have to match up with the hand-clappings of the female dancers.
This dance, very often, takes the form of a really demanding challenge as it requires a lot of skill, energy and fantacy particularly from the male dancer.
In order to break the monotony, the male dancer improvises not only by varying his feet-beating technics but also by changing the movements of his body as well as mimicking or acting out a few amusing scenes.
The two dancers carry out all these combinations always remaining within the rhythm of HAGNGNI.
The ability to perfectly combine all these factors is what makes this dance attractive and entertaining.
To excite the two dancers, the female leading singer includes in her verses their nam,es, praises their dancing qualities and bravados. She may also redicule the movements of the male dancer should these appear awkward to her.
After a while, another female dancer replaces her colleague followed by a second male who likewise takes over from his mate. The change continues so long Hagngni is performed.
No matter how often, the subsequent changes of the dancers take place without any interruption of the rhythm of Hagngni.
Similarly, some male dancers may bring a lot of feet-beating variations but they always retain the same rhythmical movement of that dance.
Part 2 : ANNA OR UKUNDA
This type of Kunama dance is performed almost in every occasion.
Anyone can take part in it: men, women, boys, girls, young and old people.
It is a very popular dance because of the simplicity of its performance.
As usual, the drums are beaten, almost in rhythm of "rock-'n-roll", by a group of women standing in the middle of the dance floor or platform.
The number of the drums used varies from a minimum of two to a maximum of ten twelve, or even more as long as these are tuned and set up in a way that, a deep sound producing drum is immediately accompanied by another smaller and high sound producing one.
These two, ten, twelve or more drums are differently beaten from both sides and all of them simultaneously. Each one of those drum-beating women has to have a good ability to beat the assigned drum in accordance with the others. A lot of concentration is, therefore, required so as not to lose the rhythm.
Every now and again, those women exchange the drums among themselves in order to share the weights of the drums as well as to demonstrate their ability to beat both kinds of drums indifferently.
Some of the drum beating women can also take the role of leading singers which obviously requires an extra ability in keeping the rhythm of Anna.
The dancers move in a rhythmical anti-clock-wise circle, listen and respond in chorus, to the leading singer.
In order to break the monotony of this dance, the young male dancers, in groups or individually, improvise different kinds of feet-steppings, remaining however, within the rhythm of the sound of the drums as well as in concordance with the movements of the other dancers.
Some other women are qualified in their cheering ways which they occasionally, use to rouse more excitement among the dancers as well as to show their appreciation of the leading singers melody and motifs.
Anna or Ukunda can be danced for a long or short period of time depending on the intensity of its entertainment instilled, very often, by the leading singers with the quality
and content of their songs.
The same young male dancers can bring this dance to its abrupt end as soon as they realise it starts loosing its excitement and attractiveness.
They achieve this by stepping against that of the other dancers thus breaking the whole rhythm of Anna or Ukunda.
The Kunama-Folklore
Part 1 :
The Kunama people celebrate their events, rituals and other observances by performing appropriate dances.
Such dances have their traditional ties and meanings with the given events or celebrations.
Though some dances are publically and frequently performed in every event, some others are strictly reserved for particular occasions and, at times, exclusively participated and performed by the members of particular groups or kinships.
There is neither formal nor informal invitation to attend the public dances. On the contrary, the private celebrations or ceremonies determine who should take part in them.
As the Kunama people have rather strong family and kinship ties, certain events are exclusively known to and their meanings shared only within the circle of those ties. The kinds of the dances performed in such occasions too are, often, considered to be prerogatives or privileges of those family or kinship ties.
In this series of writings on the Kunama pageantry and folklore, we shall be restricting our research on and description of only the kinds of the Kunama dances which are generally performed by all the Kunama people and in many occasions.
Depending on his or her dancing abilities, any participant is free to take part in or abstain him or herself from all or some of the public dances.
The Kunama, infact, possess such a wide variety of dances and dancing arts that make it very difficult, even for the Kunama themselves, to be so good as to taking part in each kinds of dances and dancing arts.
The Kunama dances are, usually, accompanied with the beating of the drums or just with clapping of hands in concordance with the rhythm of each dancing art.
The phrase "dancing art" is intended to refer to the beating of the feet of the dancers, particularly, of those of the male dancers.
The drums are beaten solely by the women. The singing too is usually a women's prerogative, but during some dances, well-known male singers take over from the women thus giving and bringing into a dance a particular flavour.
The male or the female singer introduces a lead and reapeats its refrain several times till the majority of the dancers have memorized it.
The leading singer then develops the song by adding new verses of his or her own making which, usually, explain an event, recall a particular place, praise or even ridicule the deed of a person.
The Kunama dancers, at times, could be so much carried away by the rhythm of a dance that they would not even care much about following or trying to understand the motifs of a song.
They would only and automatically repeat the refrain of the song in chorus, adapt their feet-beatings to and enjoy both the rhythm of the dance as well as of the song.
The various types of the Kunama dances will be alphabetically presented and described in our future website news.