Table Of ContentChoreographies
of African
Identities
Négritude,
Dance,
and the
National
Ballet
of Senegal
Francesca
Castaldi
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Choreographies of African Identities
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Choreographies of
African Identities
Négritude, Dance, and
the National Ballet of Senegal
FRANCESCA CASTALDI
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Urbana and Chicago
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Cover photograph:Mural by Papisto Boy–Pape Mamadou Samb,
depicting Léopold Sédar Senghor.The image is part ofSamb’s
six-hundred-foot mural on an exterior factory wall in Bel-Air,
Dakar.Photo by Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F.Roberts,1999.
Reprinted by permission.
© 2006by Francesca Castaldi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Castaldi,Francesca,1964–
Choreographies ofAfrican identities :négritude,dance,and
the National Ballet ofSenegal / Francesca Castaldi.
p. cm.
Originally presented as the author’s thesis (doctoral)—
University ofCalifornia,Riverside.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13:978-0-252-03027-7(isbn 13- cloth :alk.paper)
isbn-10:0-252-03027-3(isbn 10- cloth :alk.paper)
isbn-13:978-0-252-07268-0(isbn 13- paper :alk.paper)
isbn-10:0-252-07268-5(isbn 10- paper :alk.paper)
1.Dance—Anthropological aspects—Senegal.2.Blacks—
Race identity—Senegal.3.National Ballet ofSenegal.I.Title.
gv1588.6.c37 2006
793.31′09663—dc22 2005011094
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction:Positionality and the Choreography ofTheory 1
1. The National Ballet ofSenegal at a Theater in California 17
2. African Dance,Africanist Discourse,and Négritude 34
3. The National Ballet ofSenegal at the National Theater
in Dakar 60
4. SabarDances and a Women’s Public Sphere 70
5. Tales ofBetrayal 102
6. The Circulation ofDances on and offthe Stage 124
7. Urban Ballets and the Professionalization ofDance 150
8. Exploiting Terànga 174
Conclusion:Négritude Reconsidered 197
Notes 205
References 223
Index 237
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Acknowledgments
Many experiences and people have made this writing possible.I wish
I could thank you in a circle,in a merry-go-round.Please forgive the linear-
ity ofthe page and the impression ofbeginning and ending that it imposes
upon us.Read this not as a list but as the boomeranging spell that you sent
my way.Thank you!
I salute the women who have nurtured writing in my daily life:
My mother,Adriana Schiavoni,who first placed the pen in my hand and
taught me how to read and write;who whispered stories into my ears and into
my dreams from a very early age,feeding them to me as often as bread was on
the table;and who made up her own stories,for us,her children,and who
wrote them down.
My grandmother,Matilde Bertoni,who aged as a happy intellectual and
spent the last days ofher life writing her autobiography.Holding her book
in my hands was the first intimate sense I had ofa “familiar” author.
My grandmother,Wanda Catapano,who has been such a magical presence
as a spirit at my side,fanning tears out ofmy eyes when I was too sad to move
and too angry to breathe deeply.
My aunt,Serena Castaldi,who taught me to think with the sharpness ofhot
tongue and to create new words that like secret passages birth like women birth.
Professor Marta Savigliano,who,as the chair ofmy dissertation commit-
tee,was my closest mentor and adviser,offering constant guidance,trust,and
inspiration.She has taught me the art ofwriting as gardening:searching for
the resilient seeds ofthe wild,planting and protecting them in fertile ground,
watering the tendrils,and later trimming and cutting with a decisive but gen-
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viii . acknowledgments
tle touch.Her teaching has permeated this text with definite,profuse,and
diffuse influences;she has prodded me to shift perspective to avoid sore mus-
cles and stale arguments,to follow and undo the margins by decentering and
recentering,to go where pain lives without fear,to question myselfbeyond
what is comfortable,and to walk my ideas in public.
Professor Susan Foster,whose contagious obsession with choreography as
a metaconcept allowed me to view social practices as choreographed inter-
ventions on the stage oflife,and whose ability to deconstruct the most natural-
looking motion into a narrative ofagentive interventions reminded me that
where there is a dance there is always a subject who dances!
Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette,who welcomed me at the University of
California at San Diego for many series ofthe Popular Music Workshop with
the African and African-American Studies Research Project,and who thus
gave me the opportunity to develop my ideas in dialogue with a committed
and talented group ofinternational scholars and artists.The sponsoring of
my postdoctoral research as a fellow ofthe African and African-American
Studies Research Project in fall 2001and winter 2002enabled me to turn my
dissertation into the bulk ofthis book and to further develop my ideas in di-
alogue with students and faculty.Her insights on Négritude have deeply in-
fluenced my understanding ofLéopold Sédar Senghor’s literary and politi-
cal project,and her commitment to crossing disciplinary boundaries and
challenging the arbitrary linguistic barriers imposed by colonial histories has
greatly enhanced my understanding ofthe African Diaspora.
Joan Catapano,the editor-in-chiefofthe University ofIllinois Press,whose
support has been crucial in making this writing public.
My friend and colleague Riselia Duarte Bezerra,who engaged me in con-
versations that carried through the years ofmy doctoral studies and have al-
lowed me to develop my ideas in dialogue with hers.
Paula Seniors,who kindly hosted me in her home in San Diego and shared
friendship and intellectual camaraderie.
I thank the women who have sustained another kind ofdaily writing,that
which takes place on my body.
Professor Susan Rose,who nurtured my understanding ofchoreography
well beyond theory and who has been a model ofpunk kindness—that love
for anarchy,because it creates freedom without hierarchies.
Carol Zeitz,Sara Shelton Mann,Terry Sendgraff,Susan Murphy,and Anna
Halprin—mentors in healing in motion,who have injected curiosity and fierce
experimentation into the alchemy oftransforming the selfthrough falling,fly-
ing,spinning,reversing,repeating,and twisting in body and fantasy.
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acknowledgments . ix
Giulia Castaldi,my sister,whose youthful transgressions in social geog-
raphy have taught me to go where we are not supposed to go.
I also want to thank these male relations:
My father,Giorgio Castaldi,who taught me that to question is more im-
portant than to obey,and whose supportive help has come at crucial times in
my life,which he detected with an intuitive cunning worthy ofa woman-witch!
Professor JeffTobin,an enduring friend,who has made me laugh when I
was at my stiffest and most disheartened intellectual moments,and whose
ideas have nurtured mine with generosity.
Nilo Cayuqueo,my companion and husband,whose heart-roots run deep
in ñukemapu,and who anchored me to Abya Yala at those crucial moments
when I risked being swept across the ocean,providing the nurturance and love
that I can call home.
I also want to thank Professor Christopher Waterman,whose book on Jùjú
music was one of the first inspirations for this project,and who later wel-
comed me as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department ofWorld Arts and
Cultures at the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles in the spring of2002
and as a visiting scholar during the winter and fall of2003.I am grateful for
the opportunity to present some ofthese ideas in my course on African pol-
itics and performance.
I thank Allen and Mary Roberts,also at the University ofCaliforna at Los
Angeles,for the picture on the cover—part ofPapisto Boy’s spectacular mural
in an industrial area ofDakar.
John and Jean Comaroffat the University ofChicago guided my first steps
ofengagement in African anthropology with a commitment and acumen that
has sustained me for many years past our encounter.John MacAloon,also
at the University ofChicago,provided me with the experience ofthe richness
that comes from engaging in interdisciplinary research,an experience that
has fundamentally shaped my scholarly attitude.
Professors Ray Kea and Sterling Stuckey guided my studies in African his-
tory and aesthetics at the University ofCalifornia at Riverside,where I car-
ried out my doctoral studies.George Lipsitz at the University ofCalifornia
at San Diego was an inspiration for his political integrity and commitment
and his capacity to weave narratives ofmusic,identity,and politics into mov-
ing scholarship.I also thank him for his kind words ofencouragement and
his always-provocative questions.
The department ofdance at the University ofCalifornia at Riverside sup-
ported my doctoral studies in dance history and theory.The Social Science
Research Council,Africa Program,and the UCR Humanities Graduate Stu-
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