Ngoma (a Swahili word which literally means ‘drum’) are
happenings during which music, dance and song act
together to realize performances related to the most
important rites of the Swahili communities’ cycle of social
life.
All the ngoma performances reproduced here are ‘planned
performances’ which means that they were not recorded
during the rituals to which they belong. They were recorded
in order to complete a PhD research which was based on
contemporary times.The Verba Africana series publishes video recording of African verbal arts on
CDRom's, DVD’s and the Internet. This series responds to the increasing need for
new electronic tools that integrate the written and audio-visual materials for
research, teaching and learning of African languages and oral literatures. The video
recording of oral genres, such as poems, songs and tales, is integrated into the
presentation of relevant aspects (language, form, content, performance, literary,
social and historical context). The videos and the accompanying material (short
information and full articles) allow researchers and the interested public to
approach oral literary productions as ‘total event’.NWO, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Researc
