Sara Tobias / Staff Photographer / st939605@ohiou.edu

Senior psychology major Danielle DiVito and freshman dance major Michael Glass dance together during a rehearsal for the AZA!! concert Saturday at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. AZA!! uses a combination of dance, song and storytelling in its performances.

Ewe, a Ghanaian language, has a single word that means song, acting and dance, proving it’s possible to lack personal expertise in a single area but still participate in the spectacle.

AZA!!, a dance drama celebrating traditional and contemporary African culture, narrates the history of Africa using song, dance and storytelling, said Zelma Badu-Younge, dance director of the show and professor in Ohio University’s School of Dance.

“The show highlights, through music and dance, the struggles of a group of people who have survived culturally against the attempts of outsiders to eradicate their traditions,” said Paschal Younge, music director of AZA!! and professor in the School of Music.

It is important to talk about Africa from an African perspective because telling a story from an outsider’s view can distort the story, said Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese, AZA!!’s Ghanaian playwright.

“Our story does not come from a text book,” Agbemabiese said. “This is the history that has been passed down generation to generation, my grandparents, through oratory expression, song and dance.”

The show dispels myths about the way people in Africa live, he said. Common depictions of Africans misrepresent them as primitive.

AZA!! also recounts African history and how it changed as a result of time and European influence, Younge said.
“Africans have been resilient,” he said. “They have upheld their own traditions while incorporating new ideas to create multicultural art forms.”

AZA!! premiered in 2004 in Kanter Hall and has been building momentum since. This year it will be shown in the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, Badu-Younge said. Also performing will be an African pop group from Washington, D.C.