INTEGRATING TRADITIONAL IGBO CHILDREN’S RECREATIONAL SONGS AND DANCE INTO CHOREOGRAPHY AS REPACKAGING AND PRESERVATION STRATEGY

Abstract

In spite of the availability of numerous children’s recreational games in Igbo folk arts, finding children engage in traditional leisure activities is rare in modern Igbo society because parents and guardians, especially those who live in the cities, rely on the modern entertainment resources which radio, television programmes and other ancillary electronic media provide for their children. It is no longer fashionable for parents and elderly siblings to thrill the young members of the family with ifo tales, riddles or folk songs. And the societal values embodied in these art forms and the effects they produced on the children are now being lost (Ikwubuzo, 2002; 2012). The study adopts unstructured interview to collect data on games from Igbo-speaking communities, and Focus Group Discussion to get the participants’ subjective views on the idea of repackaging the recreational songs and games for the interest of the present-day children. The study found that incorporating choreographic concepts into physical activities which involve the recreational games, has the potential to boost children’s physical fitness, mental well-being, social bonding as well as rekindle their waning interest in the traditional leisure culture, and inadvertently encourage their Igbo language learning. This paper, recognizing the pastime’s many benefits, which, if nothing is done, stand to be lost, proposes the integration of traditional Igbo children’s recreational songs and dance into choreography, which children themselves love doing, as a packaging and preservation strategy. The paper concludes by recommending that traditional Igbo children’s games should be repackaged to make them attractive as well as to ensure their generational preservation.