Posted by Spookie on July 19, 1996 at 21:25:42:
West African dance revolves around notion
the "Circle of the Bantaba" - literally
interpreted as "The Dancing Ground" -
among the Mandinka of West Africa. The
Bantaba is a place where community, affirmation,
confirmation of self purpose is initiated
- a spiritual circle around which the community revolves.
The drums and the call to the bantaba bring
together a community drifting apart. Drums
are used as the center of the circle through
the life span of the African. During birth,
initiation and death the sound of the drum is present.
"Talking Drums" are widely used in Ghana especially by
the Ashantis. They send messages of life:happiness,
sorrow, love and war to other tribes through the
beating of the drum - they are the heartbeat of a
communal life.
In the computer science department here at UCLA every
class and and every person is "wired" - messages from
jobs to selling scooters to e-mailing a TA the midnight
before an exam and getting feedback. Everything is online.
In the dance department very few of the faculty even
use e-mail - none seem to use the computer effectivily.
I've come across a lot of stuff in forums on the web
which seem to believe that simply creating a web site
or giving people access to computers will build a
community. It will create - somehow a culture for
comptuing. I don't see how?
Will access to the hardware create a
community?
Here at UCLA I'm trying to get dancers online but there
are serious cultural bias in this community against
computers. The access is there but not the desire.
I'm wondering - how does one instill
the use of the computer in a community
that despartely needs it; but is unwilling to accept it?
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