SIDER AND GROLO MONUMENTS

These curious little monuments of baroque style bear the names of traditional n'zima dances (Akan people from Ghana who founded Grand-Bassam): sider and grolo. Some, by assimilating them to religious buildings - one dedicated to Mohammed with its miniature minaret surmounted by a cock and the other to a Christian cult with its angel with wings spread and its hand raised towards the heavens -, will be mistaken there, because they are in fact aedicules all the most secular before which the villagers organize dances, in particular at the time of Abissa, the animist festival of Grand-Bassam. Installed in the basket of monuments, dance masters or singers then give the impulse to the dancers. The sider is a dance practiced by the middle classes. Its choreography reproduces the symbolism of the cat learning to hunt with the panther and is performed around the monument of the sider crowned with its cock, symbol of awakening of the populations ("Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! The aristocrats with the lantern..."). On the other hand, the grolo, although derived from the sider, is a dance of the wealthy created by intellectuals and rich N'Zimas to stand out from the middle class. Its rivalry with the sider is materialized by the use of the saxophone and defiant songs. Its totem is the monument of the grolo at the top of which the angel Gabriel, in his capacity as intercessor to God, ensures the protection of the elite against the envious and evil spirits.