Music as a Global Resource: - International Council for Caring ...

SECTION:
Music for Sustainable Community Development
COUNTRY:
South Africa
PROJECT:
PRESERVING INDIGENOUS INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AND DANCE PRACTICES OF
AFRICA
DESCRIPTION:
The Center for Indigenous Instrumental Music and Dance Practices of Africa (CIIMDA), is a
creativity- and performance-intensive education initiative funded by the Norwegian Foreign
Office. In 2004, it was established in Pretoria. The purpose of CIIMDA is to infuse the
humanizing principles of the indigenous philosophy of the musical arts into contemporary
learning and activities through re-orientating and re-training school learners and teachers in
African countries. Current classroom music education in contemporary African nations remains
disproportionately foreign focused. Arts education design, curricular content and learning
experiences thereby impact the cultural image and imagination of both trained teachers/educators
and learners. CIIMD, an educational initiative, strives to restore African musical arts
epistemology as an effective, scientifically underpinned, learning strategy to instill African
culture through active, creative performance participation from an early age. Researched and
indigenous African formulations combined with the objectives of the CIIMDA courses, children‘s
festival creations (recorded on DVD) and educational publications (13 books, plus articles),
capture indigenous logic and grammar through:
• Regenerating the spiritual being through constant participation, thereby stimulating
mental health
• Instilling humanity consciousness through structures that engender inter-personal
bonding
• Instilling psycho-physiological health through dance, such as feminine, maternity dance
motions beginning in childhood, that strengthen the female body for child delivery or the
muscle-massage dance styles that reduce stress and tension
• Narrated and enacted folktale musical dramas that promote normative life virtues and
ideal character attributes
• Therapeutic theatrical enactment of societal experiences
• Imparting multi-faceted life skills and a creative disposition through spiritually enriched
play-mode
• Experiencing the theory and science of knowledge fields; tempering of ego syndromes
• Inclusive participation that eschews competition, discrimination and exclusion
• Interacting with the different capabilities of the community/group in creative
formulations and performances
Over 2,550 teachers/music educators/community art motivators and education advisers have
attended CIIMDA Center and outreach courses. Some 9,626 learners and students have attended
in-country workshops that showcased spontaneous group creativity performances. (DVDs of
courses, creativity and concert performances are available)
In 2009, with the support of the Music Department, CIIMDA designed a Certificate in Africa
Indigenous Cultural Arts Education (CAICAE) awarded by the Continuing Education Department
of the University of Pretoria to teachers/educators from participating African countries (the
syllabus is available).
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