Scientific Scope
The Art of Orality: Improvisation at the Crossroads of Artistic, Cultural, and Social Dimensions
The 16th Conference of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa invites academics and researchers to engage in an interdisciplinary discussion on the artistic, cultural and social dimensions of improvisation in African oral literatures.
The conference focuses on the role of improvisation in the creation of narratives, oral performance and interactions within communities.
Scientific Orientation
Oral traditions occupy a central place in many African cultures. They transmit knowledge, history and values across generations.
Improvisation enriches these traditions by making each performance unique and adapted to its environment. Oral literature is therefore not only a fixed text, but a dynamic, interactive and contextual performance created before an audience.
Improvisation may be understood as a form of spontaneous artistic creation, but also as a practice shaped by memory, experience, rhythm, musicality and cultural codes.
Performance and Orality
In oral traditions, performers may be singers, actors, dancers, musicians, poets or storytellers. Their performances often involve voice, tone, gaze, gestures, silence and direct interaction with the audience.
These communication techniques allow performers to renew the same oral narrative and give it a strong presence in each performance.
Figures of Orality
The conference highlights important figures of oral culture, including poets, storytellers, griots, praise poets and contemporary rappers.
In Morocco, the figure of the storyteller appears in the halqa, where spectators gather around the performer in public spaces. In Mali, griots act as storyteller-historians. In South Africa, the imbongi are praise poets who also comment on historical, social and political issues.
Proposed Themes
The conference welcomes contributions on:
- Cultural, artistic, and political issues surrounding improvisation in oral societies.
- Forms of improvisation in the performing arts and their impact on African oral culture.
- Figures of orality and their role in preserving and transmitting cultural traditions.
- The role of improvisation in religious and spiritual rituals, as well as its impact on beliefs and social practices.
- Improvisation, orality, and rituals: symbolic and performative dimensions.
- Translation and adaptation of oral narratives: challenges for teaching and transmission.
- Improvisation in literary and artistic creation: aesthetic and analytical issues.
- Strengthening community ties and social interactions through improvisation.
- The didacticization of improvisation in the teaching of oral literatures.
- Improvisation and interculturality in Africa: circulations, hybridizations, and reconfigurations.
- Reinventions of improvisational practices in the age of social media.
- Gender relations and oral improvisation: dynamics of the creation and reception of oral narratives.
- Reflections on African oral traditions and improvisation in contemporary practices.
Join ISOLA Africa 2027 in Morocco
Be part of an international conversation on African oral literatures, cultural memory and the future of oral traditions.