The Gahu Dance of the Volta Region of Ghana

Hey guys, today I’m going to be sharing a video I promised long ago to share, but have been holding out on posting because of cringe. Today’s #aprilinleo prompt being about tradition presents a chance for me to actually deliver on it.

In our Lead for Ghana residential institute last year, one of the core things we explored was appreciating our diversity as Africans and Ghanaians. We did a mini project where we randomly divided ourselves among the 10 (former) regions of Ghana, and performed any drama or presentation that celebrated the tradition of the people of the region.

My group was assigned the Volta region. The interesting thing is that not a single person in the group was from the region, and as such, our knowledge on the region was limited. We had just about 18 hours to choose, rehearse and perfect our presentation to deliver the next day.

We ended up choosing to do a dance called the Gahu dance. Here’s another interesting thing - the dance is imported from Nigeria, but is indigenous to the people of the Volta region. It is performed in a variety of occasions including funerals and weddings.

The linked video starts out showing us starting our rehearsal about 12 hours to the presentation, completely clueless and out of sync at this point.

Interesting enough, we were able to somewhat master the dance by the time we were called on stage, with just 2 hours of practice.

The beauty of these types of cultural performances come not only from the dance. In fact, I’d say the dancers are inspired and energized by the beat of the drums, as that is what provides the rhythm for them to dance to. In the video you can see us actually vibing and moving to the drums of the dance. I know the song sounds beautiful in this video, but this is nothing compared to if you heard them played from the live instruments themselves!

I should mention that my group modified the dance a bit towards the ending by adding a freestyle part into it. I think this was a beautiful addition, but as to whether the freestyles were fire or not, I’ll leave that up to you.

I hope you enjoy the dance. Let’s see if you can spot me in there😂

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qTXTHhIyCIk&list=PLOMkiD6Ow8UhI96U73KYomYvjMd942K8M&index=3&pp=gAQBiAQB

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