| Duration: | 5 Day(s) - 4 Night(s) |
| Tour Category: | Culture Tours |
Itinerary for this Tour
Day 1: Arrival
Yaoundé – Bamenda, relaxation.
Day 2: Village Tour
Trek tour in the village
Day 3: Traditional Dance Performance - Shopping
Esu Palace, a traditional dance, people, food, museums, shrines, craft shops, Honey Center, etc.
Day 4: Traditional Dance Performance
Female tradition ritual dance performed.
Day 5: Departure
Relaxation in the evening departure for Bamenda. return flight
End of Tour.
Traditional Dances of Cameroon:
Dance in Cameroon is an integral part of the tradition, religion, and socializing of the country's people. Cameroon has more than 200 traditional dances, each associated with a different event or situation. Colonial authorities and Christian missionaries discouraged native dances as threats to security and pagan holdovers. However, after Cameroon's independence, the government recognized traditional dance as part of the nation's culture and made moves to preserve it.
Cameroon's most popular native musical genres, bikutsi, and makossa are styles of dance music. Cameroon has imported several popular dances from abroad, including the maringa from Ghana in the 1850s, the Ashiko from Nigeria in the 1920s, and the Abele from Nigeria more recently.
Traditional dances follow strict choreography and segregate dancers based on age, occupation, sex, social status, and other factors. Some dances require special costumes and props such as masks or fans. Professional dancers make a living among some ethnic groups, and other professionals perform at national festivals and for tourists. Popular dance, wherein men and women dance together, is found in Cameroon's bars, nightclubs, and private parties.
This style is closely tied with popular music, such as makossa, bikutsi, highlife, and hip hop. Dancing is an important avenue of social protest and political rallying in the country.
Typically, traditional dances follow certain restrictions. Most traditional dances segregate participants according to gender. For example, women and men may form concentric same-gender circles, or they may dance in separate areas. Among various fandoms in the Cameroon grassfields, nobles and commoners may not participate in the same dances.
Likewise, traditional laws severely restrict the dancing of the fon's wives and daughters, often restricting them to the palace.
