Understanding the Contextual and Interpretive Performance Distinctiveness of Totoeme Dance among the People of Avatime, Ghana

Abstract

The drive to interpret African musical performances has led to a systematic research on the structures of different genres of African music among scholars in the field of ethnomusicology. One of these African musical genres with its uniqueness is Totoeme. It is an old traditional Ewe musical type practiced mostly by Northern Ewe women in Ghana and Togo. This paper highlights the context of performance and how the cultural bearers understand the Totoeme musical type as performed by Avatime people of Ghana. Through descriptive research, the author presents and interprets the performance distinctiveness of Totoeme music to complement the various facets of ethnomusicological research. It is observed that Totoeme musical genre expresses symbolism reflecting the organization and relation between musical performance and social structure. The paper also delineates the perceptual qualities and the manifestation of the instructional potency of Totoeme musical genre in Ghanaian schools.

Keywords: Totoeme, Avatime, Contextual, interpretation, Symbols