BAIKOKO TRADITIONAL DANCE

BAIKOKO TRADITIONAL DANCE

Attractive traditional Coastal Dance.

Baikoko is one of the recently attractive and favorable dance around the coast of East Africa particularly in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania. The dance involves women dancing half-naked and playing some traditional songs and drums.This dance is said to be originated from the Tanga region in Tanzania in Digo tribes where the tribal genres were involved with the oldest Mdundiko drums that make the dance attractive and later was inherited by other coastal regions.

Marimba

The dance was initially called indoor women dances performed by only women in their traditional deeds and not to be visible to men. In other tribes, this can be known as Unyago for training girls into adulthood.

Currently, Baikoko has remained the same in instrumental, drums, and dancing styles but has changed by adopting modern instruments in the city and has spread widely in Dar Es Salaam and Mombasa. Currently, Baikoko has changed its original identity where these dances are now done sometimes in open areas and men are now attending their events.

Morally, it has been discouraged to be performed in public areas to avoid spreading bad norms to children in the community. Meanwhile, it has been a good attraction to most coastal visitors, traditional dancers, and cultural events among coastal tribes.

This former dance is currently adopted in some modern music dances in East Africa. Singeli is the modern music that some dancing styles resemble that of baikoko since; women dance by hardly shaking their butts and hips.