A TRADITIONAL GHANAIAN PERSPECTIVE ON WOMEN AS COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS OF ADZEWA AND ADZEBA MUSIC AND DANCE. (Published)
Adzewa and adzeba are occasional traditional musical types of the Fanti and Guan people along the Fanti Coast of Ghana. Through qualitative research approach, the study examined the impact of women as performers and composers of adzewa and adzeba music and dance. The research, which is part of a bigger work on a Corpus of traditional Ghanaian music, involved two traditional adzeba ensembles at Winneba and Mankoadze and a contemporary dance ensemble at Cape Coast, the Central Folkloric Dance Company, which performs a variety of traditional musical types including adzewa. The study showed that women express their collective and individual sentiments through compositions and performances of adzewa and adzeba. These musical types were seen as concepts within the framework of the sociological and anthropological theories of structural functionalism in explaining norms, customs, traditions and institutions of a society.
Keywords: Adzeba, Adzewa, Composers, Music and Dance, Performers, Women