Dancing Pallbearers

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The Dancing pallbearers ( German  "Dancing Pallbearer" ) are a Ghanaian group of pallbearers from the Ashanti Region . Her real name is Nana Otafrija Pall-Bearing and Waiting Service and Dada awu . They became known through a meme , which was also published under the names Dancing Coffin ("dancing coffin") and Coffin Dance .

background

The Nana Otafrija Pall-Bearing and Waiting Service was founded by Benjamin Aidoo in 2007 as a regular pallbearer service. The idea of ​​adding a dance choreography to this came up a little later. Both services are still offered today. A funeral with dance costs extra. The service became so popular in internet culture that they also got assignments outside of Ghana, including in Kenya .

The demand for this type of burial fits in with the Ghanaian custom of celebrating funeral ceremonies sometimes as a large festival lasting several days with hospitality, entertainment, dance and live music. While some of the mourners welcome this form of saying goodbye, others speak out against it.

This service, which is rather unusual for Western burial culture, was documented for the first time internationally on the “Travelin Sister” YouTube channel. The video, which was accompanied by Ghanaian music, reached more than 2.9 million views within five years, with the start of the meme, the number of views increased to currently 5 million (as of April 25, 2020). Furthermore, this practice was mentioned in 2017 in a report on BBC News Africa and in Germany on n-tv and subsequently received by other media.

Development into a meme

From March 2020 memes appeared on the platforms 9gag , YouTube and TikTok , which initially show typical breakdown videos , so-called epic failures , followed by a video clip by the Pallbearers. This should indicate that the cause of the failure is in the coffin ( black humor ). The video was often accompanied by the song Astronomia by Tony Igy , mostly in the remix version with Vicetone .

There was also an increasing number of videos showing only the dance with the background music.

In Brazil, as part of the COVID-19 pandemic, posters with the Dancing Pallbearers were hung with the headline “Fique em casa ou dance com a gente!” (Eng. “Stay at home or dance with us!”).

In fact, the song by Tony Igy and the Vicetones made it into the charts of Germany and Switzerland as well as numerous special charts as part of the meme.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b How Prampram pallbearers became an international sensation - and a meme. In: The Ghana Report. April 17, 2020, accessed on April 25, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Ghanaians really know how to celebrate when someone dies. In: Metro. July 27, 2017, accessed April 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Alexander Sarovic: Funerals in Ghana. Death is a festival. In: www.spiegel.de of October 10, 2017. Accessed on May 24, 2020
  4. ↑ Danielle Paquette: The sudden rise of the coronavirus grim reaper: Ghana's dancing pallbearers . In: The Washington Post, April 25, 2020.
  5. ↑ Professional Dancing Pallbearers - Ghana on YouTube , accessed April 25, 2020.
  6. ^ Funeral dancers for hire. In: BBC.com. Accessed April 25, 2020 (English).
  7. ↑ n-tv NEWS: Pallbearers dance the dead to the grave. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  8. ^ Coffin Dance / Dancing Pallbearers. In: KnowYourMeme.com. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  9. ↑ The dancing pallbearers meme showcases failures of epic proportions. In: Dailydot.com. April 5, 2020, accessed April 25, 2020 (American English).
  10. ↑ BroBible: Comedy May Have Officially Peaked With The 'Dancing Pallbearers' Meme And It Couldn't Have Happened At A Better Time. In: BroBible. Accessed April 25, 2020 (English).
  11. ↑ Jacqueline Johnson Quaye: From Ghana to Global Superstars: The Dancing pallbearers from Prampram. In: AmeyawDebrah.com. April 16, 2020, Retrieved April 25, 2020 (American English).
  12. ↑ a b Favor Nunoo: 'Stay home or dance plus us' - How dancing Ghana pallbearers turn Covid-19 sensation . In: BBC News Pidgin . April 17, 2020 ( bbc.com [accessed April 25, 2020]).
  13. ↑ a b Dancing Pallbearers: What is the Internet meme all about? In: editorial network Germany . Retrieved April 25, 2020 (German).
  14. ↑ a b DJ MAG Germany: Vicetone: Whimsical meme causes chart surprise. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Chart sources: CH , DE