Contemporary African Dance Theatre: Phenomenology, Whiteness, and the Gaze

Special import

Estimated despatch time 1 - 2 weeks

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.

About
Reviews
Explore

About

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.

Reviews

Dance Research Journal

Contemporary African Dance Theatre attests to the powerful artistic voices from Africa and the diaspora that invite white audiences into confrontation with the politics of their white gaze, even as white people hold significant financial and curatorial power in the circulation of works by African artists. ... Her work is testimony to the urgent need for consumers of dance to deepen their literacy of African and diasporic dance cultures and aesthetics

Book

Contents

Download queue