1. Title of the Project:

Revitalisation of traditional Warba Dance by Troupe Warba Relwendé de Kongoussi

2. Name of the Performing Art Concerned in the Project

Warba Dance

3. Geographic location of the Community

Mossi Tribe (Yadsé de Kongoussi), Kongoussi City, Bam Province, Burkina Faso

4. Introduction of the Performing Art

Warba is a traditional dance of the Mossi Highlands in Burkina Faso. That is, the Warba is a dance which has been performed at a wide variety of Mossi community events, including traditional festivals, funerals, inauguration ceremonies for chiefs held according to customary law, and educational meetings.

The feature of Warba dance is rapid shaking of the hips and bottom. Dance costumes are also distinctive; a flared skirt of braided cotton and bells attached tied around the waist like a belt. Dancers wear hats made according to traditional local methods, as well as necklaces and ornaments made from animal leather and porcelain shells.

There is no limit to the number of dancers. Accompanying instruments include, at minimum, two tam-tam drums, at least two tambour drums, and one flute. Tam-tam drums are made of calabash gourd and livestock skin. Tambour drums are made of reused large metal boxes with animal skin stretched over them.

In an actual performance, two groups take the stage—a group of musicians comprising several drummers, a flutist, and a group of dancers. Warba is a highly energetic dance that also includes acrobatics. It is also characterised by its rhythmical nature, and at present 36 varieties of steps are known in our locality.

5. Problems the community faced before the launch of the project, and the factors which caused the decline of and threatened the performing art

Before 2003, the Warba was seldom danced in our community. Traditional festivals such as Kiougou and Pakodé were overshadowed by Christmas and Easter celebrations. Inauguration ceremonies for chiefs were rarely performed; moreover, Christian ministers/priests and Muslim imams (religious leaders) prohibited dancing with the dead when people died, or at funerals, as both Christianity and Islam deem such practices to be animistic. The community adopted modern dances and abandoned traditional ones. It came to a point where the people were dancing only to recorded music on cassette tapes. Young people viewed the Warba dance as a relic of the past, preferring instead to gather at lively, enticing bars and eateries.

The Troupe Warba Relwendé de Kongoussi was established in April 2003 out of the awareness of all the need to revitalise the Warba dance. First of all, it was necessary to resolve the problems facing the Warba dance. In addition to the issue of fundraising, it was necessary for the Warba dance to gain the approval of churches and mosques, as well as to obtain appropriate costumes, instruments, and other equipment for the dance troupe. The lack of cultural liaison between areas of Kongoussi made conveying information about the dance troupe difficult, impeding the dance troupe’s smooth operation.

6. Details of the project for solving problems of the performing art, especially who and how it started, finance, and involvement of younger generation

Fortunately, in Kongoussi there were bars where people of various ages and occupations would meet. The practice of dancing with the dead and sending off the deceased to their graves to the sound of tam-tam drums was regarded by all respectable family patriarchs as an indispensable part of their own funerals and so, ever since the practice had been prohibited, the people had been discussing the issue at every opportunity in the hope that the practice would be resurrected. These voices reached the ears of Kongoussi-born people living and working in other areas, and these people called a meeting of Kongoussi residents to discuss as its main theme the Warba dance and its future. This movement calling for community solidarity was motivated by the desire to “protect local cultural heritage that is being gradually lost over time.”

The Troupe Warba Relwendé de Kongoussi was established and attended by young and old, male and female, and the general assembly unanimously decided to form a dance troupe representing Kongoussi. Because the general assembly participants all shared the same cultural heritage, they all objected to the decline of a dance that was a part of the culture in which they took pride, because the Warba dance was their only effective performing art strengthening community solidarity.