Songs and dances in Zambia: icila

Songs and dances in Zambia: icila – social dances. In Chibale, icila is a generic term for dances for a group of dancers of both sexes, often unmarried people. It can be danced both at recreational occasions and at special occasions like the girls’ initiation and the Ipupo. Icila, or Cila, is also used to refer to the social dance gatherings of young people in the evening. Furthermore, Cila is used as a general word for gatherings with dancing. For clarity, icila is used on this site for social dances and Cila for social dance gatherings.

Types of icila

Each type of icila has a number of texts, one or a few musango and one way of drumming. The dance can be a pair dance. The couples take turns dancing between two lines of dancers of either sex (line & pair dance). Or, they dance in the near-circle formed by two curved lines of dancers of either sex (circle & pair dance). A third form is the dance in which the dancers move in a circle without couples dancing separately (circle & group dance). The social dance that started just before 1980, kalindula, has a fourth form: individuals and couples dance all at the same time without formation (dance without formation). This form may be new but he kalindula dancing styles of the women are hip (lubunda) styles with proper bending of the knees (kushana panshi).
For each social dance there is a preference for one of these forms in a certain period. It is likely that all forms can occur in any of the social dances. They are forms to bring out the purpose of the dance on that particular occasion. See for instance Film 8 about the kalindula dancing at the Kabwelamushi in which the circle & group form is used.

The icila had two versions: a moderate version where married people could also join in and a hot version that in normal circumstances was to be danced by unmarried people.

Icila represents life, life force, life flow

Songs and dances in Zambia: icila – social dances. At certain occasions, the icila is danced as a representation of life and reproductive powers, contrasted with death and mourning at mourning rituals and with confinement and intensive teaching at the girls’ initiation. When the icila was danced on these occasions, the girls used to have white and red spots on their faces, hair and torsos.¹See also Chingwalu (1973a: 13f). Though the occasion at which the icila is sung and danced can be rather serious, the icila itself is always for enjoyment (pa kwangala).

Icila develops continuously as an icilaila of internal and external material

It is not improbable that the icila repertoire is formed by the continuous adaptation of songs from other domains into that of life, life flow, life force. The icila could well be a continuous further development of songs and dance movements taken from other music and dance genres within Chibale and from outside. When one of them becomes popular, it gets a name, otherwise it disappears in a short time.

Icila in the Lala region

Songs and dances in Zambia: icila – social dances. Many names were used to refer to subtypes of the icila. Most often, it was a word or name in a new text on an existing musango. A slight change in the dancing movements also might lead to a change of name. These names then are not found in the literature about South Central African music because they were used only locally for a short period. Sometimes, when musango, dance steps, dance form, or drum patterns changed but were felt to be related to an existing dance the new one was called the ‘daughter’ of the old dance. And, when no relation was felt, the new one was a different icila.

The ‘icila – old style’ described by Jones and Kombe (1952) was the sota, a revival of the cinko.
The icila is also described by Chingwalu²Chingwalu (1973a).:“The active participants of icila dance form a circle. If there are spectators, which is always the case, they all crowd behind their sexes. […] The leader of the dance enters the circle, followed by about six men. They make a little loop. A special feature of icila dance is that the women in turn choose a man and lead him to the centre of the circle. She and several other women dance around him. Each man had his own turn to be chosen and danced around. No woman can dance around her relative.”

Songs and dances in Zambia: icila – social dances. But, as said, the icila itself is not a genre, it is the general name for social dance songs and dances and for the occasion at which these are performed. The use of the name is confined to the Lala region.

Links to articles on four social dances that followed each other in the 20th century

Cinko

Mbeni

Fwandafwanda

Kalindula