Trading Virtue for Virtuosity: The Artistry of Kinshasa's Concert Danseuses

Braun, Lesley Nicole

doi:10.1162/afar_a_00182

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…No longer are steps performed together in a single rhythm because they come from the same region or once shared a ritual purpose; rather, they are performed because they have the same “feel” or “time.” Whereas professional artists in the socialist period conceptualized dances as versions of ethnic originals, brought together under a national rubric, today they maintain an approach to dance that stipulates an urban cosmopolitanism that denies ethnicity or nationalism as dominant categories of belonging . In this context, older forms of danced expression no longer capture what it means to be young and resourceful in Guinea (for related cases in other parts of Africa, see, for example, Argenti ; Braun ; Shipley ). But the postsocialist generation's retention of certain core moves as key to producing value in dance testifies to their attempts to build continuity into cultural change.…”

Section: Postsocialist Reconfigurationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inalienable performances, mutable heirlooms: Dance, cultural inheritance, and political transformation in the Republic of Guinea

Cohen

2016

American Ethnologist

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Dance in the Republic of Guinea is an object of cultural transmission that magnifies the inherent contingency of social reproduction and the plasticity of the heirloom. Long connected to the vicissitudes of Guinean politics, dance was violently appropriated by the postindependence socialist state (1958–84) as a tool of nation building. In postsocialist Guinea, where the nation‐state has relinquished its stake in the performing arts, young practitioners create new improvisational forms that emblematize shifting models of ideal personhood. Novel dance forms incite tension about intergenerational trust and cultural inheritance in a social context in which neither the heirloom nor the cultural identity it signals remains stable. [dance, inheritance, inalienability, personhood, postsocialism, Republic of Guinea, West Africa] La danse en République de Guinée sert de véhicule de transmission culturelle qui démontre la nature contingente de la reproduction sociale et la nature plastique de l'héritage culturelle. Longtemps liée aux vicissitudes de la politique guinéenne, la danse fut violemment appropriée par l’état socialiste pendant la période qui suivit l'indépendance (1958–84) comme outil pour la construction de la nation. En Guinée postsocialiste, où l′État‐nation a abandonné son mécénat des arts du spectacle, de jeunes danseurs créent des nouvelles formes d'improvisation qui révèlent des chagemements dans la conceptualisation de l'identité individuelle. Ces nouvelles formes de danse suscitent des problèmes de confiance entre les générations par rapport à la succession culturelle, dans un contexte où ni l'héritage ni l'identité culturelle sont stables. [danse, héritage culturel, inaliénabilité, notion de personne, postsocialisme, République de Guinée, Afrique de l'Ouest] Kabi a rakuya, fare nun mangɛya nu e boore malima la République de Guinée bɔxi ma. Première République waxati (1958–1984), La Guinée mangasanyi nu fare xa fe rawalima alako ɲama xa lan e boore ma, mangasanyi xa nɔ mixie mafa a mabiri. Kabi Sékou Touré xa waxati raɲɔnyi, mangasanyi mu artistya tide to alɔ singe ra. Kɔnɔ mixi wuyaxie bara naatɛ tongo fare xa fe ma, alako e xa nɔ masenyi tife ɲama ma duniɲɛigiri xa fe ma. Artiste tagi, lanlanteya mu na temui birin mixi mɔxie nun mixi mɔxitaree tagi. Naamunyie na masarafe; to maɲɔxunyi mu lanxi xɔrɔ maɲɔxunyi ma. Ɲama ki fan masarafe. Birin xa na kolon fare saabui ra. [fare, kɛɛ, lanyi, mixiya, postsocialisme, République de Guinée, Afrique de l'Ouest]

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Section: Postsocialist Reconfigurationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inalienable performances, mutable heirlooms: Dance, cultural inheritance, and political transformation in the Republic of Guinea

Cohen

2016

American Ethnologist

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“…17. See White (2008, 113-122) and Braun (2014) for extensive descriptions of the performances of female dancers of ndombolo bands and the social and moral negotiations these women engage in. 18.…”

Section: Practical Nostalgiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Dancing to the rhythm of Léopoldville: nostalgia, urban critique and generational difference in Kinshasa’s TV music shows

Pype

2016

Journal of African Cultural Studies

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“…Sabar and other women's dance parties in Senegal are typically analysed by anthropologists as liminal spaces where women are empowered to dramatize their sexuality. Suggestive dances, in these analyses, are an expression of resistance to patriarchal authority (Heath 1994) or a kind of inversion of normal social roles that helps women ‘build up confidence in female power linked to sexuality’ (Neveu Kringelbach 2013: 87; for a related example in the DRC, see Braun 2014). This angle is not entirely irrelevant to Guinean sabar, but female empowerment, as I will demonstrate, is only one element of the complex semiotic encounter that sabar constitutes in Conakry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing excess: urban ceremony and the semiotics of precarity in Guinea-Conakry

Cohen¹

2019

Africa

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In Conakry, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea, dance ceremonies called sabars, derived from a Senegalese genre of the same name, have become extremely popular for wedding celebrations. Sabar's rise in Guinea coincided with the liberalization of the country's economy and the opening of national borders in the wake of state socialism (1958–84) – events that have produced profound uncertainty for average citizens. This article explores sabar as a practice that grapples affectively with the social and economic changes neoliberal reform has engendered within Guinea. Sabar ceremonies are characterized by instantiations of excess, including hypersexualized dancing, electric amplification and theatrical displays of opulence. By examining excess as an ‘emergent’ quality whose cultural value is undetermined, the article demonstrates how dancers participate in the active constitution and questioning of collective value in Conakry, and how embodiment is central to an anthropology of precarity.

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Trading Virtue for Virtuosity: The Artistry of Kinshasa's Concert Danseuses

Cited by 11 publications

References 7 publications

Inalienable performances, mutable heirlooms: Dance, cultural inheritance, and political transformation in the Republic of Guinea

Inalienable performances, mutable heirlooms: Dance, cultural inheritance, and political transformation in the Republic of Guinea

Dancing to the rhythm of Léopoldville: nostalgia, urban critique and generational difference in Kinshasa’s TV music shows

Performing excess: urban ceremony and the semiotics of precarity in Guinea-Conakry

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