Kwasi Davor

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Name: Kwasi Davor
Age: 82 years
Birth Place: Dagbamate
Profession: Teacher of history, geography, culture, traditional dance and music at Education College


First interview

Kwasi Davor explained to me that there is a wide generation gap with regards to musical tastes. The older, non-educated people are more interested in traditional music, whereas the youth are influenced by western culture and tend to forget traditional culture and music. For example at Atrikpui, the elders can dance, play and act on it, whereas most of the youth are not as attached to this music. This is because TV, radio and other media affects youth, who only see westerners and their world experiences; therefore they prefer to be like them. Kwasi was afraid that they are losing their musical tradition because the youth have no knowledge of their tradition and not even interested in it due to distraction of western music. He says that the elderly women are just as involved in music as the men; however the youth keep to themselves, and are not very interested. Sometimes the young people come and join but unless they sit down and think, they will lose it.
Kwasi Davor considers himself a drummer, dancer and singer, and can play most of Ewe music as well as sing and dance them too. About five years back, he taught a young woman and a young man who were learning from Kwashi. He learnt his dancing through his senior brother in the primary school. Later he organized a musical group in college, and he was the leader. With time, he began to learn more because there are new variations constantly. Kwasi said that some educated people look down upon tradition but because of education and exposure, their interest could be stirred again.
He says that as a result of tourism, people try to imitate the foreigners who bring their own culture. He says that the process of teaching can be hampered or facilitated depending on how the students receive it. The influence of Christianity is such that because of the shrine, the traditional religion has kept in tact and so people still play the drums. People are well-inclined in traditional musical and there are different types of traditional groups, such as Akpoka, Atsitamevu/unity, Kinka, Kpegisu, Adzogbon, Gakpa, Singa, Agutany, Agbosu, Adro. He said that not much has changed due to the presence of Christianity.
However, the youth are not ready to involve themselves in the music, and they have to educate and influence the youth to join the traditional groups in order to keep the tradition alive. He remarked that the old people are vessels of knowledge and when they die, it is as if an encyclopedia has been destroyed. He loves traditional music, and goes traveling in order to perform, for example to Accra. He also likes dancing and music in general and it helps him to stay young and fit.
He said that music is always changing, and the change can be both positive and negative. The positive change is that new variations are added to make improvements in how people play, but a negative effect could occur if a person who originally played the piece may not have taught the piece exactly. Therefore it’s lost.

Second interview

Interviewed by Julia Santanna Parrill in July 2008

Back to interview listing