Colloque organisé par l'African Studies Association of the UK.
Dance, Socio-Cultural Change, and Identity Politics in African History

Deadline:  30 avril 2014
Voir le site de l'association:
http://www.asauk.net/conferences/asauk14.shtml 
In the last few decades a historiography of music in twentieth-century Africa, forms of which were often closely related to dance, has started to emerge. The study on dance per se in African history is much less developed. Broadly speaking, scholarly writing on dance emerged from colonial-era anthropology and from art history where it is linked with masquerade. At a time when no historian of Africa expressed genuine interest in researching on dance in Africa, Terence Ranger traced in 1975 the origins and the meanings of beni ngoma dances. In so doing, Ranger introduced dance as a valuable analytical tool of social change, ‘resistance’, accommodation, and group identification in colonial studies.

Dance, as an object of academic enquiry, indeed permeates a vast array of themes. Dance reflects life trajectories. The practice, the sociology, and the aesthetics of dance inform cultural dialogues between people. Such exchanges, for instance, gave rise to some syncretic dance styles throughout sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the logics of the emergence of these dance genres:  the nature of cultural conversations and the parameters that facilitated them, and the ways in which these cultural encounters, accompanied by political and economic relationships, eventually redrew social and hierarchical boundaries. Historical circumstances provide dance with potent political and ideological meaning. And yet, no study, has, for instance, considered why the suppression, prohibition, and regulation of the dances of Africans under colonial rule has sparked so much political and moral anxiety and generated multiple and contradictory policies and attitudes from colonial administrators, appointed chiefs and middlemen, as well as African elders and missionaries.

Dance fashions the politics of belonging. As a corporeal expression of popular discourse, dance forms in Africa have served the interests of a wide range of groups: the youth, politicians, and women. We also need more focus on dance in rural contexts, so as to appreciate the ways in which performance translated the tensions, negotiations, and vivid dialogues between rural and urban settings. Finally, the possibilities to instil meaning into this non-verbal practice are vast - the costumes, the age or ethnic identity of dancers, and the public to whom a dance is addressed, contribute toward such projects - dance is a tool in shaping nationalist ideology and in the creation of national subjects. Dance permeates a realm that has not attracted sufficient focus in the African context: that of national identity.

The following are a few examples of potential topics that explore the theme:
-Dance performance and political power in pre-colonial African history.
 -Dance and war
 -Dance and iconographies of Africa between the early eighteenth century and the interwar period.
-Dance and the missionaries.
-Dance and the colonial state.
 -Dance and the youth.
-Dance and pleasure.
 -Club culture.
 -Dance and generational relations/change.
 -Dance, morality, social norms and order.
 -Dance and Africans’ war experiences.
 -Dance, accommodation, resistance, and emancipation.
 -Dance and identity politics.
 -Dance and ethnicity.
-Dance and race.
 -Dance and class.

 Contributors should approach these themes from a historical perspective. They are encouraged to provide details on the materiality, the aesthetics, and the symbolics of dance forms (clothing, choreography, movement). Researchers based in Africa are especially encouraged to submit their articles.  Accepted papers will comprise original work not previously published. Please submit 250-word abstracts and short bios by April 30th 2014 to:
234364@soas.ac.uk