section_path: History/African performing arts
section_name: African performing arts
paragraph_text: African performing arts
  
  Indigenous African performance traditions are rooted in ritual, storytelling, movement, and music. Performances were communal with the storytellers and audience interacting and participating in call and response, which is characterized by a vocalist singing a phrase that is then echoed or responded to with a new phrase by the other performers and/or audience. This ancient tradition is rooted in many African cultures.