Audiovisuals of Igbo Dances (AID) Project

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Audiovisual of igbo dances project (AID)

The Igbo tribe is the second largest ethnic group in Nigeria, primarily found in the southeastern part of Nigeria .comprising Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Anambra states. Igbo people are great lovers of music and considered one of the musically oriented people in Africa. Their musical activities are associated with every stage of one’s development in life. Hence, there are specific dances for children, adolescents, adults, women and even men, for each local government area and state, resulting in the existence of several dances in the region.

However, there is no record of these dances or even their possible number anywhere in Nigeria including the National Archives of Nigeria. The typical information available is trivial mentions of dance troupes hosted during significant national events in the 1960s-1980s. Even so, these sparse information, mostly on paper form and not preserved elsewhere, are in a vulnerable state with potential risk of destruction by rodents and humidity.

These records are also unavailable in the National institute for Cultural Orientation and are attributed to lack of funds and interest to document them. Instead, they are mostly found in the aging population, many of whom are great storytellers but not literate. There is also a dwindling interest of the younger generation in this cultural heritage posing risk of extinction of igbo dances.

In addition, this intangible cultural heritage of the Igbo people are underrepresented in wikimedia projects. Less than 10% of Igbo dances are covered on English Wikipedia and Igbo wikipedia. This cultural expression of the Igbos could play a role in identifying the origin of other indigenous dances. For example, available records have shown that the Valencian dance, Muixeranga originated from the Igbo dance, [[1]][[2]][[3]] . Yet, this igbo dance, important to the Valencia culture, is inadequately covered on wikimedia projects and the internet.This project will identify, document, digitize and preserve Igbo indigenous dances and make them available under an open license. We hope that this project will bring increased awareness and care and eventually spur people to write about indigenous dances in and outside of the movement.

Goals[edit]

  • To digitize and preserve endangered Igbo dances in freely and easily accessible format.
  • To build a knowledge database of indigenous Igbo dances in Nigeria in the digital space and on wikimedia projects.
  • Increase awareness and use of indigenous language (particularly Igbo language) on the internet space and wikimedia projects.
  • To promote open culture for educational and research purposes.

Project Core Team[edit]

Project Advisors[edit]

Support[edit]

This project is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation

Partners[edit]

  • Wikimedia Nigeria
  • Igbo Wikimedia Usergroup
  • Africa Tech Radio
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