Why I Challenge Doctoral Degrees In African Music And Dance

Recently there was an article about “on-line” doctoral degrees on the net. With the pandemic forcing people to work and study at home, many have sought to acquire a doctoral degree ‘on-line’. Those who follow my writings know I have been challenging the concept of doctoral degrees since the sixties. At that time, the most common degrees offered were the Ph.D. doctor of philosophy, and the Ed.D, doctor of education. Neither of these degrees fit the parameters of the discipline of African music and dance.

I also challenged whether these schools, be they brick and mortar or on line universities, were equipped to handle the various new courses that were crowned and birthed with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Most certainly NOT, particularly in the field of African music and dance which was one of the most desired subjects that was birthed out of the Civil Rights Act. African descendants were anxious to learn about the culture they left behind. Unfortunately, there were not enough foot soldiers on the ground, who could teach about these varied and diversified cultures. These colleges and universities would soon incorporate these courses in their field of study were at a loss and only acted because failure to do so would cause loss of government funding.

I was one of those foot soldiers leading the way to have courses in African music and dance included in the schools and colleges. I was the first to teach African dance in Brooklyn College and also assisted other colleges and universities to get personnel in their facilities to teach African music and dance. In fact I was asked by Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, of New York University to act as the ‘faculty search’ person to find someone to teach a course in New York University in the spring of 1972. Although I did not get my first choice, Washa Ng’Wanamashalla of Tanzania, I did manage to bring G. Agbeli from Ghana to teach beginning in February 1972.

Another reason why I challenged doctoral degrees was because at that time, there were not enough Black people who held a doctoral degree who could qualify to head a department of African or Black Studies. There were a number of Institutes of African or Black Studies that were hastily built. These Institutes served mainly as meeting places and hangouts for students who majored in “lunchroom” and “Bid-Whiz”. As Institutes can not offer courses on their own, but had to as the established departments to offer courses on behalf of the Institute, that was another way for Charlie to get his foot in the door and teach things from the western perspective and not from the African perspective.

My main reason for challenging doctoral degrees in African music and dance was western universities failed to recognize African music and dance as a discipline tantamount to anthropology, sociology, medicine and law. I recall being disappointed in my efforts to earn the doctoral degree. In a conference with Dr. Margaret Mead, esteemed anthropologist, she told me to stick to my conviction as she envisioned my work to be the foundation of African music and dance. The new courses that were birthed out of the Civil Rights Act definitely needed their own particulars that defined the parameters of their discipline.

As African dance does not exist without some form of music be it the voice, hand clapping or orchestras of instruments, it is impossible to write about using the rules and regulations defined in various style manuals. What is needed is a system whereby the learned can read the symbols that represent how the instrument is played as well as the symbols of the accompanying dance movements in a single integrated score.

Greenotation, the system for writing music of percussion instruments and Labanotation, the system for writing dance movements used together forming an integrated score, is the only way comprehensive dissertations can be written. What is extremely troublesome is the number of people who are willing to pay mega bucks to universities be they ‘brick and mortar” or “on-line” for a degree that does not reflect the discipline of Africa music and dance. With this degree and without a written alphabet to define the music and dance, what will they teach? Or will they continue to perform remnants of the National Dance Company of Senegal. How long can these jaded performances continue to hold the interest of the younger generations to come?

Professor Albert Mawere Opoku was the first person to transfer traditional dance from the bush and place it in a classroom setting. He also created the National Dance Ensemble to represent the dances of Ghana in 1962. Professor Opoku realized that the enticing effect that African dance would have on the viewing public saw this as a problem wherein people would try to duplicate the dances without knowing the culture or language of the drums would actually castrate dances of Africa. Therefore Professor Opoku brought Odette Blum to Legon in the sixties to apply Labanotation to the dances of Ghana. Unfortunately when I arrived on the campus in 2002 as a United States State Department Cultural Specialist to teach how to write dance on the computer, much of her notes were not available as references. The students learned how to write the dance TOKOE on the computer and it will be placed in the Archive of notated scores that celebrate my work in African music and dance.

As a western trained musician and dance long before I embarked upon African music and dance, I would not pay a western university mega bucks for a doctoral degree that did not reflect my area of concentration. These western universities could not teach me anything about percussion music, particularly rhythm, which they interpret according to the western perspective not the African perspective.

Today there are other doctoral degrees that appear on the horizon of universities. There is the Doctor of Arts and the Doctor of Leadership degrees. Unfortunately these degrees do not reflect African music and dance as the discipline they are. The numbers of Blacks who hold a doctoral degree have increased multifold, but the degree is NOT within the parameters of the discipline of African music and dance. Therefore, we have professors who have earned their degree in anthropology, sociology, history, modern dance and music heading departments of African Studies or Black Studies that house courses in music and dance of Africa. These courses are often grouped as “World Music or World Dance. There is no reason way African music and dance is not treated as the discipline it is. We have to continue to challenge doctoral degrees in African music and dance until they truly encompass the diversity of the people and are transferred from oral traditions to written traditions.