Songs and dances in Zambia: Chibale

Songs and dances in Zambia

Songs and dances in Chibale, Zambia. Zambia has a variety of songs and dances. But what about that if you look at songs and dances in one region of Zambia?1The research for the articles about songs and dances is presented in Ways of working for description.

An overview of song genres

Songs and dances in Chibale, Zambia. In the miniseries of articles on song classification, we learn that the different ways in which people classify songs mostly relate to the purpose and use of the songs. Conflicts in classification are not felt as such since every single classificatory action is related to a specific context (purpose and use). The most consistent (over multiple occurrences) and authoritative classification is done by the influential mediums.

With the discussion in the song classification articles in mind, we can go through the various song genres found in Chibale. We have chosen to list them by names. The reason for this is that specialists use names with consistency, though older names are relatively unknown by the general public, see the article on the familiarity with song genres among ‘the general public’. Furthermore, comparison with songs and dances in surrounding areas can only be based on names.
We list these genre names below as links to articles. Each of these offers a description, information on the occurrence and character of each song genre in the areas around Chibale, in the Kaonde-Lamba-Lenje-Lala area and further.

Cinsengwe

Ilimbalakata

The cinsengwe ing’omba

Musowa wa mfwa2Musowa wa mfwa is not recognised as song but this is the best place to list it.

Spirit possession genres

Kaluwe

Ciwila

Mwami

Mashabe

Moba

Icila – social dance songs

Cinko

Mbeni

Fwandafwanda

Kalindula

National kalindula and lumba

Women’s songs and dances

Cimbwasa / Women’s dances

Men’s music

Christian songs

Dance genres

Songs and dances in Chibale, Zambia. The classification of dance genres follows song classification since there is always singing, and often instrumental music, to dancing.
There are quite some names for ways of dancing that are elements in a dance genre or are specific to the interpretation of a dance genre by a certain individual dancer.

Footnotes

  • 1
    The research for the articles about songs and dances is presented in Ways of working for description.
  • 2
    Musowa wa mfwa is not recognised as song but this is the best place to list it.

IJzermans, Jan J. (2024) Amalimba. Music and related dance, text & ritual in one African region. https://amalimba.org/songs-and-dances-zambia-chibale/

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