Costume and make-up are part of the major components of dance, they add beauty to the overall dance performance. Costume and make-up portray the culture area which a dance group represents, so that even if it were not announced, people are able to identify the culture that owns the group. Groups choose their costumes based on their performance types, cultural background and their beliefs. This paper aims at doing a critical study on the place of costume and make-up in selected contemporary dance music groups in Igbo communities. It investigates among other things the historical background of the groups, noting their developmental progress from the time of inception. It also tries to do a brief comparison between their past and present practices to ascertain the level of outstanding influences of Western culture on Igbo traditional music as regards costumes and make-up. Data for this research work was collected through fieldwork, review of related literature and participant observation. This study was based on performance and acculturation theories. The paper reveals that although there are very outstanding influence of Western culture on Igbo dance music performance in the area of costume and make-up, there still exist groups whose costumes are purely locally made. This paper recommends that the costume for a traditional group should be sourced traditionally to effectively represent the culture that owns the music.
Hope Nkechi Okpala (Wed,) studied this question.