ABSTRACT

The contexts of Indigenous dance practices in postcolonial African environments have continued to evolve. The phenomena of dance bears on the meanings that individual dance practitioners construct as active agents in Indigenous dance knowledge production. This work draws on the following question to examine how contexts of practice impel the reimagining and reimaging of dances, dancing, and the dancing body in Indigenous dance practices: What meanings do Indigenous dance practitioners construct from partaking in Indigenous dance education practices in varied contexts? Using Indigenous knowledge systems theoretical frame and decoloniality as lenses of analyses, the article reveals how reimaging and reimagination of Indigenous dances transcends framing the body as an exotic, fetishized, and objectified artefact. The dance practitioners rationalize the dances and dance experiences as affective and conceptual-expressive epistemology and ontology that is grounded in community connection, self-guided creative imagination and innovation, intercorporeal embodiments, socio-economic positionalities, and intersubjective situatedness. The complex meanings are anchored in dynamic contexts, experience, agency, community, situations, and epistemological holism. The article provokes a radical rethink in how pedagogy, performance, research, and recreation of Indigenous African dances can be understood and engaged in ways that rise above the Anglo-European objectification, exoticization, and fetishization of the Black body.

摘要

后殖民非洲环境中土著舞蹈实践的背景继续发展。舞蹈现象与个体舞蹈从业者作为土著舞蹈知识生产的积极主体所建构的意义有关。这项工作利用以下问题来检验实践环境如何推动对土著舞蹈实践中舞蹈、舞蹈和舞蹈身体的重新想象和重新想象：土著舞蹈从业者在不同背景下参与土著舞蹈教育实践会构建什么意义？使用土著知识系统理论框架和非殖民化作为分析的镜头，本文揭示了对土著舞蹈的重新想象和重新想象如何超越将身体框定为一种异国情调的、拜物化的和客观化的人工制品。舞蹈从业者将舞蹈和舞蹈体验合理化为情感和概念表达的认识论和本体论，这些认识论和本体论基于社区联系、自我引导的创造性想象和创新、身体间的体现、社会经济地位和主体间情境。复杂的含义植根于动态的语境、经验、能动性、社区、情境和认识论整体论中。这篇文章引发了对如何以超越英欧对黑人身体的客观化、异国情调和迷恋的方式来理解和参与非洲土著舞蹈的教学法、表演、研究和娱乐的彻底反思。自我引导的创造性想象和创新、跨体化身、社会经济地位和主体间情境。复杂的含义植根于动态的语境、经验、能动性、社区、情境和认识论整体论中。这篇文章引发了对如何以超越英欧对黑人身体的客观化、异国情调和迷恋的方式来理解和参与非洲土著舞蹈的教学法、表演、研究和娱乐的彻底反思。自我引导的创造性想象和创新、跨体化身、社会经济地位和主体间情境。复杂的含义植根于动态的语境、经验、能动性、社区、情境和认识论整体论中。这篇文章引发了对如何以超越英欧对黑人身体的客观化、异国情调和迷恋的方式来理解和参与非洲土著舞蹈的教学法、表演、研究和娱乐的彻底反思。