Contemporary African Dance Theatre

This book is the first to consider contemporary African dance theatre aesthetics in the context of phenomenology, whiteness, and the gaze. Rather than a discussion of African dance per se, the author challenges hegemonic perceptions of contemporary African dance theatre to interrogate the extent to which white supremacy and privilege weave through capitalist necropolitics and determine our perception of contemporary African dance theatre today. Multiple aesthetic strategies are discussed throughout the book to account for the affective experience of 'un-suturing' that touches white spectatorship and colonial guilt at their core. The critical analysis covers a broad range of dance choreography by artists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Canada, Europe, and the US as they travel, create, and show their works internationally to global audiences to contest racial divides and white supremacist politics.

Auteur

Sabine Sörgel was Senior Lecturer in Dance and Theatre at University of Surrey, UK, from 2013 until 2019 and she now works as an independent scholar, writer, and dramaturg. Her previous publications include Dancing Postcolonialism: The National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica (2007) and Dance and The Body in Western Theatre: 1948 to the Present (2015).

Contenu

1. This is Not a Book About African Dance.- 2. Sources and Vocabularies of Contemporary African Dance Theatre Aesthetics.- 3. White Supremacy, Necropolitics, and Anti-Capitalist Dance.- 4. Mistaken Identity: Deconstructing White Beauty and Gender Politics.- 5. Collaborative Blindness: Funding, Failure and the Ethics of Collaboration.- 6. This is a Book About Whiteness and the Gaze.