Hallie Gammon - DANC 0163 - Kyunkor, or the Witch Woman

The most interesting part of this article to me was the critical response Dafora's response received - critics used phrases like "the controlled savagery of movement and gesture which is quite thrilling" and described it as a "primitive African ritual drama." I was unsure if the appreciation for his work was based more on its actual technical elements or on its novelty and exoticism. I was also interested in the debate over whether the work should actually be classified as an opera. My dictionary defines an opera simply as "a dramatic work in one or more acts, set to music for singers and instrumentalists." By this definition, "Kyunkor" certainly qualifies.

I found the criticisms of some of the critics who attempted to disqualify it interesting: according to Paul Bowles, "as long as the music used as its basis the eight drums of varying dimensions...the illusion of West Africa was very well preserved...When any sort of sustained melodic line was introduced, however, the illusion was automatically destroyed...These 'cultured' voices brought everything right back to New York where it decidedly did not belong." First of all, I cannot find evidence that Paul Bowles traveled anywhere in Africa other than North Africa, so I am unsure as to what criteria he uses to judge this "illusion of West Africa;" furthermore, he implies that "culture" as a quality for voices is something inherently un-African - as though all African singers are untrained, something that is patently untrue based on the articles we've read in this class. He also criticizes Dafora's incorporation of musical influences such as Methodist missionary hymns, saying that they too break the African illusion. There is a curious sentiment in many of these critics' assessments that they know better than Dafora what is truly African - all things primitive, "uncultured" and savage. What may ironically have been some of the most authentic elements of Dafora's piece - the incorporation and acknowledgement of missionary influences on African music, for example - are exactly the things the critics find the least authentic.

There is also an interesting comment made my one critic who says that the piece was not an opera because "the musical aspect was secondary." He does not consider the "unceasing background of rhythmic drumming" to be a primarily musical aspect of the work - a judgment that is very ironic when we consider what we have read, seen and heard about African attitudes toward the inseparability of music and dance - how one is married to the other. Perhaps Dafora would argue that, by the very virtue of its being a dance piece, the musical aspect is paramount. Though the critics are clearly aware of the Africanness of the work and are attempting to analyze and judge it as such, they (like many of us) cannot escape their own preconceptions about what constitutes such a basic thing as music. Asadata Dafora's work was truly ground-breaking, presenting his audience with an aesthetic they struggled to understand at the same time that they were fascinated by it. Although African dance and its influences have become much more mainstream today, we are still faced with the challenge of getting outside our own point of view and preconceived notions to understand it from a more African perspective.