Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:13:04.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Lena Hammergren
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

“About ABF in English.” 2017. Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund. Accessed March 24, 2019. http://www.abf.se/Om-ABF/About-ABF-in-English1/.Google Scholar
Afrofobi: En kunskapsöversikt över afrosvenskars situation i dagens Sverige, no. 1. 2014. Stockholm: Mångkulturellt Sverige.Google Scholar
Antoine, Asma-na-hi, Rachel Mason, Roberta Mason, Palahicky, Sophia, and Rodriguez de France, Carmen. 2018. “Appropriate Use of Indigenous Content.” In Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers. Montreal: Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/chapter/appropriate-use-of-indigenous-content/.Google Scholar
Ayi, Beatrice. 2015. “Traditional Dance in Ghanaian Schools: Maintaining National Identity through the Involvement of Youth and Children.” In Dance Education around the World: Perspectives on Dance, Young People and Change, edited by Nielsen, Charlotte Svendler and Burridge, Stephanie, 68–71. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Monica. 1966. Jazzgymnastik i hem och skola. Stockholm: Beckmans bokförlag.Google Scholar
Bergstrand, Eva. 2001. ”Dödsfall: Bedu Annan.” Dagens Nyheter, November 19.Google Scholar
Beshir, Samson, Hübinette, Tobias, and Kawesa, Viktoria. 2014. ”Samhället måste ta den växande afrofobin på allvar.” Dagens Nyheter, February 3. Accessed February 3, 2020. https://www.dn.se/debatt/samhallet-maste-ta-den-vaxande-afrofobin-pa-allvar/Google Scholar
Cohen Bull, Cynthia J. 1997. “Sense, Meaning, and Perception in Three Dance Cultures.” In Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, edited by Desmond, Jane C., 267–287. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper Albright, Ann. 2013. Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Crosby, Jill Flanders, and Moss, Michèle. 2014. “Jazz Dance from Emancipation to 1970.” In Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches, edited by Guarino, Lindsay and Oliver, Wendy, 45–58. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danbolt, Mathias. 2017. “Retro Racism: Colonial Ignorance and Racialized Affective Consumption in Danish Public Culture.” Nordic Journal of Migration Research 7 (2): 105–113. doi: 10.1515/njmr-2017-0013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Laet, Timmy. 2017. “Giving Sense to the Past: Historical D(ist)ance and the Chiasmatic Interlacing of Affect and Knowledge.” In The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, edited by Franko, Mark, 1–27. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314201.013.35.Google Scholar
“Disorienting Whiteness and Heterosexuality–Course.” n.d. Stockholm University of the Arts. English Courses. Accessed February 3, 2020. https://www.uniarts.se/english/courses/courses/desorienting-whiteness-and-heterosexuality-course.Google Scholar
Elfving, Karin. 2005. “‘Det glada Afrika’ får oss att släppa loss.” Svenska Dagbladet, October 11. Accessed February 3, 2020. https://www.svd.se/det-glada-afrika-far-oss-att-slappa-loss.Google Scholar
Foster, Susan L. 1992. “Dancing Bodies.” In Incorporations. Zone 6, edited by Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, 480–495. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Arthur W. 1991. “For a Sociology of the Body: An Analytical Review.” In The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, edited by Featherstone, Mike, Hepworth, Mike, and Turner, Bryan S., 36–102. London: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammergren, Lena. 2014. “Dancing African-American Jazz in the Nordic Region.” In Nordic Dance Spaces: Practicing and Imagining a Region, edited by Vedel, Karen and Hoppu, Petri, 101–127. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Hammergren, Lena. 2016. “Att tala—att dansa: Om metaforens betydelse inom danspedagogik.” Nordic Journal of Dance 7 (1): 18–27. http://www.nordicjournalofdance.com/NordicJounal%207(1)Web.pdf.Google Scholar
Hammergren, Lena. 2017. “Ett eget språk? Ur danspedagogens perspektiv.” In Språket och dansen, edited by Sandström, Birgitta, 123–150. Stockholm: Carlssons förlag.Google Scholar
Hardt, Yvonne. 2017. “Pedagogic In(ter)ventions: On the Potential of (Re)enacting Yvonne Rainer's Continuous Project/Altered Daily in Dance Education.” In The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, edited by Franko, Mark, 247–267. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Helgesson, Stefan. 2015. ”Så tonade jazzen ned rasismen i Norden.” Dagens Nyheter, March 20.Google Scholar
Kraut, Anthea. 2008. Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Landsberg, Alison. 2015. Engaging the Past: Mass Culture and the Production of Historical Knowledge. New York: Columbia Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lundmark, Katarina. 2011. “Jazzdans på KI, SD, DH och DOCH.” In Danspedagogik! Ursprung, Uttryck och Unika Minnen, edited by Grönlund, Erna, Redbark-Wallander, Ingrid, and Ståhle, Anna Karin, 97–113. Stockholm: DOCH.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 2004. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Noland, Carrie. 2009. Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Richard A. 2006. “From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation.” Communication Theory 16 (4): 474–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Lena. 2006. “Racialization, Gender, and the Negotiation of Power in Stockholm's African Dance Courses.” In Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, edited by Clarke, Kamari Maxine and Thomas, Deborah A., 316–334. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Arnd. 2003. “On ‘Appropriation’: A Critical Reappraisal of the Concept and Its Application in Global Art Practices.” Social Anthropology 11, no. 2 (June): 215–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schupp, Karen. 2015. “Teaching Collaborative Skills through Dance: Isolating the Parts to Strengthen the Whole.” Journal of Dance Education 15 (4): 152–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirkeci, Ibrahim. 2009. “Transnational Mobility and Conflict.” Migration Letters 6, no. 1 (April): 3–14.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2008. “Remembering Kinesthesia: An Inquiry into Embodied Cultural Knowledge.” In Migrations of Gesture, edited by Noland, Carrie and Ness, Sally Ann, 85–112. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Deborah A., and Clarke, Kamari Maxine. 2006. “Introduction: Globalization and the Transformation of Race.” In Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, edited by Clarke, Kamari Maxine and Thomas, Deborah A., 1–34. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Vásárhelyi, Lilian K, Frankenstein, Michael, Harryson, Charlotte, Cramér, Ivo, Lopez, Daniel, and Häger, Bengt. (1973) 1975. Jazzdans. Stockholm: Brevskolan.Google Scholar
Wagner, Ulla, and Yamba, Bawa. 1986. “Going North and Getting Attached: The Case of the Gambians.” Ethnos 51 (3–4): 199–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wray, Sheron. 2014. “Jazz Dance as an American Export in France and the United Kingdom.” In Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches, edited by Guarino, Lindsay and Oliver, Wendy, 249–260. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar