Dance and decolonisation in Africa: introduction

Abstract

The wife whose turn it is that evening, bring her along. No, bring your favourite wife! But that's not sharia't,. No sharia't in the nightclub! This suggestive exchange takes place between Malian eminences grises who, in the 1960s, were members of 'Las Vegas', one of Bamako's many dance societies, as they contemplate a reunion now that they are all in their 60s rather than in the '60s. Back then, scores of young people of Bamako had been photographed by their contemporary Malick Sidibé in their groovy decolonial glory, with thoughts of sharia't seemingly far from their minds. Now those very people were starting their get-together with namaaz, though in a trice the memory of their youth made them break out from the prayer mat to a mean pachanga. The scene is captured in Dolce Vita Africana (Spender 2008), a documentary film on Sidibé's work and times. 1 While his photographic oeuvre shines the spotlight on the camera's role in decolonising an African country, the documentary underlines its collaboration with the dance floor to fashion the euphoric subject of decolonisation, but also that euphoria's afterlife, and dance's ability momentarily to turn back the clock. These themesdance as embodied memory and nostalgia, dance as challenge to linear temporality, dance as a collective social actshape this special issue on dance and decolonisation in Africa. As editors, we drew inspiration from many sources: classic novels that weave music and dance into their evocations of community life, written on the eve or aftermath of decolonisation, for example Camara Laye's L'Enfant Noir (1953), Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat (1967); a new generation which returns to those foundational moments through critical nostalgiasuch as Tunisian filmmaker Moufida Tlatli's depiction of belly dance in The Silences of the Palace (Samt el qusur, 1994); singer-songwriter Paulo Flores's revival of the Angolan dance-music genre semba; and scholarly works that have illuminated such mobilisations of dance and music within the frame of

The circuits-of-power framework and dance institutionalisation in Cameroon

“…In fact, the early decolonisation process was marked by Pan-African movements such as the Negritude movement that developed a series of protests against white supremacy through arts. Kabir and Djebbari (2019) acknowledge that 'dance in varied frican contexts is reaffirmed and probed as a complex cultural, political, and affective field.' Again, secret societies' dances and rituals played an important role to resist colonial forces and procolonialists during what is known today as the bamileke war or hidden war (Deltombe, 2011, p. 144) spearheaded by the Cameroonian Peoples Union (UPC) insurrection .…”

“…Clegg et al (2006: 18) consider power in terms of control and resistance, both body and soul, 'soft coercion' meant to govern obligations, and 'productive resistance' engaged in political revolt. Some scholarly works have addressed the deployment of dance within the framework of African decolonisation and postcolonial identity (Apter, 2005;Castaldi, 2006;White, 2008;Djebbari, 2019;Kabir & Djebbari, 2019). Most of the works underscore African resistance to cultural obliteration, and acknowledge that dance was/is an important decolonising tool.…”