Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T11:49:43.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dada Masilo's Giselle: A Decolonial Love Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2023

Rainy Demerson Open the ORCID record for Rainy Demerson [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents a polycentric Africanist reading of Dada Masilo's Giselle, which debuted in South Africa in 2017. Although ballet was used as a tool of colonization in South Africa, establishing cultural and aesthetic norms from a European paradigm, while undermining Indigenous arts and excluding non-white artists, I argue that Dada Masilo's choreographic choices employ the narrative of Giselle to decolonize through ballet. Masilo's choreography indigenizes the ballet, transforming local and global practices through an Indigenous lens. Dada Masilo's Giselle embodies African philosophies such as ancestorism, as well as gender fluidity and complementarity. It mobilizes techniques such as signifyin(g), comedic resistance, code-switching, battling, shouting, and critically reappropriating Tswana and diasporic movements in order to convey a distinctly South African version of the European ballet. This work transcends the romantic love of Giselle in order to convey a decolonial love by centering South African ways of knowing and being in the world.

Keywords

African contemporary danceancestorcode-switchingdecolonizefeministGiselleIndigenoussignifying
Type
Article
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , December 2022 , pp. 8 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the 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

Amnesty International. n.d. “South Africa: Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Offenders Must Face Justice.” Accessed September 17, 2019. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/09/south-africa-gender-based-violence-and-femicide-offenders-must-face-justice/.Google Scholar
Andrade, Susan Z. 2007. “Rioting Women and Writing Women: Gender, Class, and the Public Sphere in Africa.” In Africa After Gender?, edited by Cole, Catherine M., Manuh, Takyiwaa, and Miescher, Stephan F., 85–107. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Banes, Sally, and Szwed, John F.. 2002. “From ‘Messin’ Around’ to ‘Funky Western Civilization’: The Rise and Fall of Dance Instruction Songs.” In Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance, edited by DeFrantz, Thomas, 169–204. Studies in Dance History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Biko, Steve. 1978. I Write What I Like: Selected Writings. 2002 edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chaleff, Rebecca. 2020. “Dance of the Undead: The Wilis’ Imperial Legacy.” In Futures of Dance Studies: Studies in Dance History, edited by Manning, Susan, Ross, Janice, and Schneider, Rebecca, 415–430. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Jude, Mafokoane, Shula, and Nyathi, Talent Ntombi. 2019. “‘Rocking the Rock’: A Conversation on the Slogan ‘Wathinta Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo!’, Intergenerational Feminisms and the Implications for Womxn's Leadership.” Agenda 33 (1): 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2019.1598775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2008. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 1st edition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coly, Ayo A. 2015. “Un/Clothing African Womanhood: Colonial Statements and Postcolonial Discourses of the African Female Body.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 33 (1): 12–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2015.1021209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CueTV. 2017. “Dada Masilo's Giselle.” Interview (YouTube). July 3, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNGUq_i9eo&t=101s.Google Scholar
Daniel, Yvonne. 2005. Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomble. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Drewal, Margaret Thompson. 2003. “Improvisation as Participatory Performance.” In Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, edited by Albright, Ann Cooper and Gere, David, 119–134. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis. 1989. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. Reprint edition. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gearhart, Rebecca. 2005. “Ngoma Memories: How Ritual Music and Dance Shaped the Northern Kenya Coast.” African Studies Review 48 (3): 21–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gender Links. n.d. “South Africa: Gender and Elections.” Gender Links (blog). Accessed December 3, 2019. https://genderlinks.org.za/what-we-do/governance/advocacy/south-africa-gender-and-elections/.Google Scholar
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 2001. “Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Prescence in American Concert Dance.” In Moving History/Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader, edited by Dils, Ann and Albright, Ann Cooper, 332–341. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Lee. 2003. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. Santa Monica, CA: Artisan Home Entertainment.Google Scholar
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1995. Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Jackson, Jonathan David. 2001. “Improvisation in African-American Vernacular Dancing.” Dance Research Journal 33 (2): 40–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Imani Kai. 2011. “B-Boying and Battling in a Global Context: The Discursive Life of Difference in Hip Hop Dance.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 31, 173–195.Google Scholar
Jones, Adanna Kai. 2016. “Take a Wine and Roll ‘IT’!: Breaking Through the Circumscriptive Politics of the Trini/Caribbean Dancing Body.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.Google Scholar
Kourlas, Gia. 2018. “Review: A Reimagined ‘Giselle,’ With South African Roots.” New York Times, April 4, 2018, Arts sec. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/arts/review-dada-masilo-giselle-joyce-theater.html.Google Scholar
Kringelbach, Hélène Neveu. 2013. Dance Circles: Movement, Morality and Self-Fashioning in Urban Senegal. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Krueger, Anton. 2018. “Revolutionary Trends at the National Arts Festival 2017 (an Overview).” South African Theatre Journal 31 (2–3): 202–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwoba, Brian, Chantiluke, Roseanne, and Nkopo, Athinangamso, eds. 2018. Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Lexico. n.d. S.V. “indigenize.” Lexico Dictionaries | English. Accessed November 12, 2019. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/indigenize.Google Scholar
Marius Petipa Society. 2016. “Giselle.” The Marius Petipa Society (blog). May 3, 2016. https://petipasociety.com/giselle/.Google Scholar
Masilo, Dada. April 2018. Personal communication at Masterclass.Google Scholar
Masilo, Dada. 2017. Dada Masilo's Giselle. Rhodes University Theatre, June 29-July 1.Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Merriam-Webster. n.d. S.V. “indigenize.” Accessed November 12, 2019. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indigenize.Google Scholar
Morgan, Ruth, and Reid, Graeme. 2003. “‘I've Got Two Men and One Woman’: Ancestors, Sexuality and Identity among Same-Sex Identified Women Traditional Healers in South Africa.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 5 (5): 375–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Geraldine. 2017. “Giselle and the Gothic: Contesting the Romantic Idealisation of the Woman.” In Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Methodologies, edited by Nicholas, Larraine, 235–247. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mungwini, Pascah. 2013. “African Modernities and the Critical Reappropriation of Indigenous Knowledges: Towards a Polycentric Global Epistemology.” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 8 (1): 78–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nnaemeka, Obioma. 2005. “Mapping African Feminisms.” In Readings in Gender in Africa, edited by Cornwall, Andrea, 31–40. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. 1997. The Invention of Women. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Radio France. n.d. “Les Dessous d'un Geste: Le Flirt Du Ballet “Giselle”, Par Dada Masilo.” Accessed January 10, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=−QxBZtDz0xM.Google Scholar
Reid, Graeme. 2013. How to Be a Real Gay: Gay Identities in Small-Town South Africa. Scottsville, SA: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.Google Scholar
Rodriguez, Cheryl R., Tsikata, Dzodzi, and Ampofo, Akosua Adomako, eds. 2015. Transatlantic Feminisms: Women and Gender Studies in Africa and the Diaspora. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Romaeuropa. n.d. “REf17 Giselle by Dada Masilo - YouTube.” Accessed November 19, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYKeyXGfBrs.Google Scholar
SAHA. n.d. “SAHA - South African History Archive - You Strike the Women, You Strike the Rock!” Accessed November 26, 2019. http://www.saha.org.za/women/national_womens_day.htm.Google Scholar
Salo, Elaine, and Mama, Amina. 2001. “Talking about Feminism in Africa.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 50, 58–63.Google Scholar
Schwarm, Betsy. n.d. “Giselle | Ballet by Adam.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed November 7, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Giselle.Google Scholar
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. 2013. Islands of Decolonial Love. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.Google Scholar
Slabbert, S., and Finlayson, R.. 2002. “Code-Switching in South African Townships.” In Language in South Africa, edited by Mesthrie, Rajend, 235–257. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Sandra, Yarbrough, Fay A., eds. 2011. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400–1850. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2002. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research And Indigenous Peoples. 5th Printing edition. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Smitherman, Geneva. 1986. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Waynebook 51. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Sowell, Debra Hickenlooper. 2011. “Romantic Landscapes for Dance: Ballet Narratives and Edmund Burke's Theory of the Sublime.” Dance Chronicle 34 (2): 183–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/01472526.2011.580237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuckey, P. Sterling. 2002. “Christian Conversion and the Challenge of Dance.” In Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance, edited by DeFrantz, Thomas, 39–58. Studies in Dance History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Sudarkasa, Niara. 2011. “The ‘Status of Women’ in Indigenous African Societies.” In Readings in Gender in Africa, edited by Cornwall, Andrea, 25–30. Oxford, UK: James Currey.Google Scholar
Sulcas, Roslyn. 2016. “Dada Masilo Turns Tchaikovsky on His Head in ‘Swan Lake.’” New York Times, February 1, 2016, Arts sec. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/arts/dance/dada-masilo-turnstchaikovsky-on-his-head-in-swan-lake.html.Google Scholar
Van Wyk, Steven. 2012. “Ballet Blanc to Ballet Black: Performing Whitenness in Post-Apartheid South African Dance.” In Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies Many Voices Many Stories, edited by Friedman, Sharon, 31–50. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Vernon, Diana. n.d. “Dada Masilo, South Africa's Star Choreographer.” Culture Trip. Accessed December 19, 2019. https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/dada-masilo-south-africas-star-choreographer/.Google Scholar
Welsh-Asante, Kariamu. 2000. Zimbabwe Dance: Rhythmic Forces, Ancestral Voices, and Aesthetic Analysis. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Zenani, Nongenile Masithathu, and Scheub, Harold. 1992. The World and the Word: Tales and Observations from the Xhosa Oral Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar