A Contested Corporeality: Solidarity, Self-Fulfillment, and Transformation through African-Derived Dancing

Abstract

This article focuses on an analysis of ways in which conflicts between dancing as an act of solidarity, a tool for self-fulfillment, or as a form of an interpretative transformation have been played out in practicing dancing derived from different “African” cultures within a Swedish context. This period embraces African-American theatrical jazz dance during the 1960s and the more contemporary interest in dances from West African countries. The examples articulate modes of cultural appropriation. The question raised is whether a focus on embodied experience of dancing can subvert the practice of appropriation, or if the two approaches are contradictory.