Documenting Ghanaian dances through Labanotation

Ghana as a country is blessed with numerous music and dance cultures. The establishment of tertiary institutions giving formal training in cultural content is commendable. However, there is limited documentation of most of these indigenous contents, especially dances. The traditional forms for preserving Ghanaian dances have been through oral, aural and observational transmission. In as much as attempts have been made by scholars to document some of these rich dances of Ghana, efforts do not seem to be in-depth. The paper is presented within the framework of the Labanotation theory and places it as one of the possible approaches to safeguard Ghanaian dances. It also discusses the challenges which the approach is confronted with when used to document African dances. The objective of this paper is to review the state of dance recording in Ghana and the possibilities of complimenting Labanotation with cinematography to aid in better documentation processes. The review concluded that Labanotation and cinematography can support existing indigenous forms of preserving Ghanaian dances and suggests some further future studies by scholars.