Contemporary African Dance

African contemporary choreographers increasingly delink from Eurocentric performance conventions and work toward establishing local conditions of production and consumption by performing in public spaces. Although the labor undertaken to shift power asymmetries does not always result in structural changes, their art may be considered decolonial creative expression. Based on ethnographic research at the third and fourth editions (2022 and 2023) of Fatou Cissé's street performance festival, La ville en mouv'ment (The City in Movement), in Dakar, Senegal, the author argues that decolonial potentiality extends beyond the precarious economic conditions to encapsulate the artists' return to public space and futurist aesthetics. Des chorégraphes contemporains africains se détachent de plus en plus des conventions de spectacles eurocentriques et travaillent à l'établissement de conditions locales de production et de consommation en se performant dans des espaces publics. Bien que le travail entrepris pour modifier les asymétries de pouvoir ne se traduisent pas forcément par des changements structurels, leur art peut être considéré comme une expression créative décoloniale. Basé sur une recherche ethnographique lors des troisième et quatrième éditions (2022 et 2023) du festival de performance de Fatou Cissé, La ville en mouv'ment, à Dakar au Sénégal, l'auteur soutient que le potentiel décolonial s'étend au-delà des conditions économiques précaires pour englober le retour des artistes dans l'espace public et leur esthétique futuriste.

n mid-January 2016, a photo of the rising Senegalese pop star Wally Ballago Seck, adorned in red skinny jeans, a black peacoat with a thick fur trim, and a pink handbag, circulated the Internet (see Timera 2016). The seemingly innocent photo of the young star sparked a widespread and severe outcry in the context of an ongoing masculinity crisis. Suturing a Senegalese male celebrity and an accessory perceived as feminine-the handbag-the photo unleashed rampant fear that the widely admired Seck was promoting homosexuality, or worse, that he was homosexual. 1 Public figures including Seck's friend, the musician Baba Hamdy, participated in the outcry, claiming in an open letter that "it serves nothing to defend the indefendable [sic] . . . in my humble opinion, we have to straighten out Waly" (Soidri 2016). 2 On January 30, Seck publicly reaffirmed his mutually constitutive heterosexuality, masculinity, Muslim identity, and national belonging in an act meant to assuage concerned fans. 3 In front of nearly two thousand audience members at the expansive Grand Théâtre National in Dakar, wearing a blue boubou 4 with gold embroidery, a clear indication of his Muslim identity, Seck destroyed the pink handbag with a pair of scissors to resounding cheers and applause (see Leral.net 2016). Following a heartfelt apology and declaration of his love for Senegal, un-coincidentally staged at the national theater, this instance performatively undid the unacceptable yoking of Senegaleseness and homosexuality invoked by the photo. L'affaire sac-à-main, or the handbag case, as it came to be known, is part of a series of instances over the past decade in Senegal in which gender or sexual transgressions are forced into public discourse, thereby catalyzing a widespread oppositional response in protection of "Senegaleseness" or "Africanness." Rising Islamic fundamentalism, the internationalization of Western human rights agendas, and dire economic conditions are a few of the factors that have contributed to the current anti-homosexual backlash in Senegal (Coly 2013; M'Baye 2013). However, l'affaire sac-à-main is not the full story. A few months following this event, a handful of Senegalese male choreographers, all of whom identify as Muslim, offered performances that present the Muslim Senegalese male body in ways that allow for effeminacy and homoeroticism. Hardo Kâ's Dieu, le diable et moi (2016), which premiered at the annual Festival Duo-Solo Danse in Saint-Louis in the north of Senegal, Mamadou Dieng and Thierno Diédhiou's Laabu Bal (2016), and Bamba Diagne's Gualankor (2016), both created and performed at Andréya Ouamba's Ateliers Expériences et Corps (AEx-Corps) workshop in Dakar, offered ambiguous assemblages of masculinity that disrupt the

This article takes a closer look at the processes of reappropriation of the aesthetic field within which the phenomenon known as 'contemporary African dance' was shaped in the second half of the 20th century, mainly for the use of Western audiences. Using the context of the generally outlined political and economic conditions of production, and based on examples of performances that illuminate the basic concepts of postcolonial theories (e.g. H.K. Bhabha, E.W. Said and R. Bharucha), the text outlines the main historical and aesthetic lines of the formation of the term 'contemporary African dance' and its possible designations, evoking the artistic attitudes and formal procedures employed by artists of different generations in the process of reclaiming and transforming the aesthetic field that this term defines.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la question : en quoi l’apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines contribue-t-il à la déconstruction de l’occidentalocentrisme au sein de la communauté franco-québécoise blanche à Montréal ? Il sera démontré que cet apprentissage vient à offrir la possibilité à la communauté franco-québécoise blanche de retourner le regard critique vers elle-même afin d’observer sa propre acculturation occidentalocentrique et afin d’observer comment elle perpétue la violence de la blanchité. Ancré dans un cadre critique de justice postcoloniale, l'apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines peut contribuer à délier la hiérarchisation entre un occident associé à « l'humanité » et « l'Autre » associé à une humanité en fonction de sa proximité avec l'occident. L'apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines invoque une déhiérarchisation des catégories de « modernité/primitivité » et cultive une restitution des pluralités face à une colonialité qui continue à hégémoniser les épistémologies, les ontologies et les esthétiques. Ce faisant, l’enseignement de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines au Québec est un exemple de cas qui déstabilise les paradigmes néo-coloniaux du ‘développement’ dans lesquels le ‘Nord’, associé à la ‘modernité’, est agent de développement, alors que le ‘Sud’ est récipiendaire du développement. Les implications plus larges de cette étude ont trait aux questions d’engagement dans une solidarité réhumanisante qui déconstruit la colonialité; aux questions de coexistence sociale dans la pluralité culturelle; ainsi qu'à l'éthique orientant les relations qu'on entretient avec « l'Autre ».

This thesis focuses on the question: how does learning contemporary African dance contribute to the deconstruction of Western-centrism within the white Franco-Quebecois community in Montreal? It will be shown that this learning comes to offer the possibility to the white Franco-Quebec community to return the critical gaze to itself to observe its own Western-centric acculturation and in order to observe how it perpetuates the violence of whiteness. Anchored in a critical framework of postcolonial justice, the learning of contemporary African dance can help to untie the hierarchy between a West associated with "humanity" and the "Other" associated with a humanity according to its proximity to the world. 'West. Learning contemporary African dance invokes a de-hierarchization of the categories of “modernity/primitivity” and cultivates a restitution of pluralities in the face of a coloniality that continues to hegemonize epistemologies, ontologies, and aesthetics. In doing so, the teaching of contemporary African dance in Quebec is an example of a case that destabilizes the neo-colonial paradigms of 'development' in which the 'North', associated with 'modernity', is an agent of development, whereas the 'South' is the recipient of development. The broader implications of this study relate to questions of engagement in a rehumanizing solidarity that deconstructs coloniality; questions of social coexistence in cultural plurality; as well as to the ethics guiding the relations that one maintains with “the Other”.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la question : en quoi l’apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines contribue-t-il à la déconstruction de l’occidentalocentrisme au sein de la communauté franco-québécoise blanche à Montréal ? Il sera démontré que cet apprentissage vient à offrir la possibilité à la communauté franco-québécoise blanche de retourner le regard critique vers elle-même afin d’observer sa propre acculturation occidentalocentrique et afin d’observer comment elle perpétue la violence de la blanchité. Ancré dans un cadre critique de justice postcoloniale, l'apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines peut contribuer à délier la hiérarchisation entre un occident associé à « l'humanité » et « l'Autre » associé à une humanité en fonction de sa proximité avec l'occident. L'apprentissage de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines invoque une déhiérarchisation des catégories de « modernité/primitivité » et cultive une restitution des pluralités face à une colonialité qui continue à hégémoniser les épistémologies, les ontologies et les esthétiques. Ce faisant, l’enseignement de la danse contemporaine héritière des sources africaines au Québec est un exemple de cas qui déstabilise les paradigmes néo-coloniaux du ‘développement’ dans lesquels le ‘Nord’, associé à la ‘modernité’, est agent de développement, alors que le ‘Sud’ est récipiendaire du développement. Les implications plus larges de cette étude ont trait aux questions d’engagement dans une solidarité réhumanisante qui déconstruit la colonialité; aux questions de coexistence sociale dans la pluralité culturelle; ainsi qu'à l'éthique orientant les relations qu'on entretient avec « l'Autre ».

 


Abstract

This thesis focuses on the question: how does learning contemporary African dance contribute to the deconstruction of Western-centrism within the white Franco-Quebecois community in Montreal? It will be shown that this learning comes to offer the possibility to the white Franco-Quebec community to return the critical gaze to itself to observe its own Western-centric acculturation and in order to observe how it perpetuates the violence of whiteness. Anchored in a critical framework of postcolonial justice, the learning of contemporary African dance can help to untie the hierarchy between a West associated with "humanity" and the "Other" associated with a humanity according to its proximity to the world. 'West. Learning contemporary African dance invokes a de-hierarchization of the categories of “modernity/primitivity” and cultivates a restitution of pluralities in the face of a coloniality that continues to hegemonize epistemologies, ontologies, and aesthetics. In doing so, the teaching of contemporary African dance in Quebec is an example of a case that destabilizes the neo-colonial paradigms of 'development' in which the 'North', associated with 'modernity', is an agent of development, whereas the 'South' is the recipient of development. The broader implications of this study relate to questions of engagement in a rehumanizing solidarity that deconstructs coloniality; questions of social coexistence in cultural plurality; as well as to the ethics guiding the relations that one maintains with “the Other”.

This article presents a polycentric Africanist reading of Dada Masilo's Giselle, which debuted in South Africa in 2017. Although ballet was used as a tool of colonization in South Africa, establishing cultural and aesthetic norms from a European paradigm, while undermining Indigenous arts and excluding non-white artists, I argue that Dada Masilo's choreographic choices employ the narrative of Giselle to decolonize through ballet. Masilo's choreography indigenizes the ballet, transforming local and global practices through an Indigenous lens. Dada Masilo's Giselle embodies African philosophies such as ancestorism, as well as gender fluidity and complementarity. It mobilizes techniques such as signifyin(g), comedic resistance, code-switching, battling, shouting, and critically reappropriating Tswana and diasporic movements in order to convey a distinctly South African version of the European ballet. This work transcends the romantic love of Giselle in order to convey a decolonial love by centering South African ways of knowing and being in the world.

Knowledge is often likened to weather conditions that pay no heed to national boundaries. This opinion has ledmany African scholars into using the same instruments to gauge issues in African and non-African studies expecting to getsimilar results. In this study, the researchers reveal that dance without music is unthinkable in Nigeria. Using specificexamples and field observations, they reveal that such ideals are of non-African origin, which should not be encouraged tooverlap in a culture with already defined musical functions, roles and characteristics.

Through the analysis of the choreographic, arts installation dance piece "Zombification" by the Haitian born, based in Mali, choreographer, curator, actress, dance teacher Kettly Noël, we claim that her work desmantles what we are formulating as necroaesthetics. It is a concept relying in Achille Mbembe"s proposal, though we advance it advocating how it becomes body, with the support of the Theory of bodymedia by Prof. Helena Katz and Prof. Christine Greiner.

ABSTRACT
African dance performances have been popularized globally as a result of its initiators’ need for global identity. This has encouraged African dancers and choreographers to create work that address social, cultural and political issues peculiar to the African continent. However, so many debates have arisen to redefine contemporary dance and contemporary African dance. The latter, with a core reference to Africa depicts a dance with its roots and plot structure in Africa. This paper tends to make reflections on the contemporary African dance, especially in Nigeria and its impact on the contemporary Nigerian society who are beginning to understand this new language in the performing arts. It will analyse opinions from the two factions in dance, that is, the ‘distortionist’, who is the contemporary dancer/choreographer or the preserver of culture who is the indigenous dancer/choreographer.
Keywords: Contemporary African Dance, Choreographers, Acceptance, Challenges, Growing Trend