Horton, Austin Asadata Dafora

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Horton, Austin Asadata Dafora

Horton, Austin Asadata Dafora, Nigerian composer; b. Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa, Aug. 4, 1890; d. N.Y., March 4, 1965. As a youth, he became deeply interested in African folk dance festivals and studied the culture of many African tribes. He then organized a dance group in Germany. He settled in the U.S. in 1921, devoting himself to the propagation of African art, coaching singers, dancers, and drummers for performance of African dances. He utilized authentic African melorhythms in several of his stage spectacles, for which he also arranged the musical scores. Of these, Kykunkor, the Witch, produced at the Unity Theater Studio in N.Y. on May 7, 1934, attracted considerable attention. He also produced a dance drama, Tun-guru.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire