Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 7 Number 3, December 2006
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Castaldi, Francesca. Choreographies of African Identities: Negritude, Dance, and the National Ballet of Senegal. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 246 pages, ISBN 0-252-07268-5 (paper), $25 USD.
Reviewed by
Missouri Southern State University
A revision of her dissertation, Francesca Castaldi has authored Choreographies of African Identities: Negritude, Dance and the National Ballet of Senegal (2006). The book has eight chapters, with an introduction and conclusion, as well as references, notes, and an index. Castaldi’s topic is concerned with on the one hand, the ways in which the National ballet of Senegal (NBS) is interpreted from the point of view of a white western consumer as presented on stage. On the other hand Castaldi examines the consumption of the same text Pangols, from the point of view of an audience member in Senegal. Being careful to disclose that she is interpreting the text from a Eurocentric reference point, Castaldi uses ethnographic and choreographic analysis (after Foster 1995) to interpret her field research. In terms of theoretical paradigms supporting her interpretations, Castaldi uses Mudimbe’s 1988 framework of
Castaldi conducted field research in Dakar, Senegal over two separate periods, three months during early 1996, and six months covering the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997. Field research also included attendance at two performances of NBS in southern California in 1995 and 1998. Rather than following the chronological approach to tribalism, colonialism, independence and post colonialism set forth in the theoretical paradigm, Castaldi problematizes these by suggesting that
To accomplish these tasks, Sabar social dancing is juxtaposed to the professionally produced Pangol performances and here the elements of gender, feminism, and male dominance are explored, through the larger economic and social culture of the country’s history.
In chapter one, The Order of the Same opens with a description NBS’ performance of Pangols attended by Castaldi at the Barclay Theater in Irvine, California in 1995. She discusses the venue, the market segments attending based on their clothing, and the display of the NBS as a high cultural production. Africa is staged in a way that is stereotypical for consumers of world dance. In so doing and through the consumption process by people who have little experience in reading such texts, the white audience has colonialism reinforced in their minds, along with tribal associations of Africa. Moreover, Castaldi suggests that the program notes and reviews reinforce this view of Africa. She writes that this is merely The Order of the Other such that
[A]s long as the dominant narratives about African societies in the West remain racist and stereotypical, the general public in the theater (and the white public in particular) will have no recourse but to the same racist discourse in their interpretation of the performance (33).
Castaldi is successful in making the connections between the dance and the underlying theoretical model. Chapters two and eight accomplish the task of showing the development of NBS with the change from colonialism to Negritude. Details are given about the ways in which Senghor attempted to free Senegal to develop its own state separate and apart from France in education, language, politics and economies. Moreover, having the reference point of the country’s beginning shift away from colonialism to independence brings a different reading of the effectiveness of the Senghor regime. The Order of the Other allows the “other” to be redressed.
In determining The Third Dis/Order, Castaldi wants to support what critics of Senghor’s effectiveness have undervalued. These slippery issues are covered in chapter 8. There she insists that Senghor
…as the major ideologue of the Senegalese Socialist Party constructed Africa as a symbol of purity and innocence standing against the evils of capitalist society. He then used Negritude to support an ideology of African socialism that assumed a smooth coherence between romanticized African communal values and Marxism (202).
The author covers many aspects of life in Dakar, Senegal with interpretations of conversations with individuals, choreographer dancers, and ethnic groups who are separated and hostile toward each other. She examines relations between men and women, religion, and social dance and dance for production. She concludes that the situation in Dakar is a result of years of colonial memory and a failure to embrace other readings of the anti-colonial period by intellectuals. She connects dance with each of these aspects of life and time in Senegal, and shows how African dance exploitation is intimately linked with the African Diaspora.
A very challenging project, this book contributes well to our understanding of reading dance and its association with political and academic views of time periods in ways that are not immediately obvious. Moreover, this work allows us to be aware of macro and micro level differences in Africa. Each country and the people living in them needs to be seen both as a separate entities—not essentialized as tribal subjects—and as parts of a larger continent and social fabric woven within the centuries-long effects of exploitation, searches for meanings, and change. These in turn reside in and can be read through danced discourses.