Dance in Cameroon

Colonial authorities and Christian missionaries discouraged native dances as threats to security and pagan holdovers.

However, after Cameroon's independence, the government recognised traditional dance as part of the nation's culture and made moves to preserve it.

Traditional dances follow strict choreography and segregate dancers based on age, occupation, sex, social status, and other factors.

Under Cameroon's colonial-era governments, German, British, and French regimes banned dances that they deemed a threat to their primacy.

[2] Dancing in church became increasingly common as evangelical Christianity gained popularity and Cameroonian priests and pastors replaced Americans and Europeans.

[3] After Cameroon gained independence in 1960, the government recognised traditional dance as an integral part of the nation's culture,[4] and non-governmental organisations promoted its preservation.

Such dances accompany births, christenings, weddings, and funerals[5] and invoke the spirits of ancestors to cure the ill or increase fertility.

[8] The Bamileke perform war dances, for example, and the motio of the southwest incorporates the slaying of a goat with a single blow to demonstrate the dancers' prowess.

[5] For example, members of the ntsham society of the Kaka people in Cameroon's northwest dance to bring about spiritual possession.

[13] In 2000, the government of the Southwest Province banned mapouka, a dance imported from Côte d'Ivoire, for its sexual nature.

While the popular press can be muzzled by the government, dancers in the street are freer to express their discontent with—or support for—government policies or political parties.