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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Lena Hammergren
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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.

Keywords

affective inquiryAfrican dancesAfrican-American theatrical jazz danceappropriationcorporeal consumptionembodimentpedagogy
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 52 , Special Issue 1: In and Out of Norden: Dance and the Migratory Condition , April 2020 , pp. 7 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Dance Studies Association

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