Dance as a globalised phenomenon and custodian of cultural identity in a democratic polity

Abstract

The word ‘globalisation’ has fast become one of the commonest registers of the 21st Century vocabularies in describing a world trend phenomenon – a phenomenon that its traits and standards transcend localized, as well as intra-continental boundaries. Dance in today’s world is evidently one of such universal phenomenon that unifies the world into a global village in a unanimous cross-border appreciation of its aesthetic, entertaining, and ritualistically engaging functionalities. Dance, through the ages and across cultural, political and geographical divides, exhibits the inherent propensity (regardless of its locale of origin, and the location of its performance in time) to animate its audience through its spectacular expression, interactive communication, cross-culturally dramatized education, therapeutic engagement and refreshingly entertaining and soul-searching endowment. It is against this background that dance is investigated in this paper, as a globalised custodian of cultural identity in a democratic economy, with a view to highlighting its globalised values on one hand, and typically as a custodian of the cultural identity of a people on the other. The case study analytic method is deployed in a juxtaposed examination of the Kompini and Omoko Dances of the Itsekiri people, as well as a series of in-depth one-on-one interviews, library research, and participant observation methods.