Full Description
Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in New York and Dakar, this book explores the Senegalese dance-rhythms Sabar from the research position of a dance student. It features a comparative analysis of the pedagogical techniques used in dance classes in New York and Dakar, which in turn shed light on different aesthetics and understandings of dance, as well as different ways of learning, in each context. Pointing to a loose network of teachers and students who travel between New York and Dakar around the practice of West African dance forms, the author discusses how this movement is maintained, what role the imagination plays in mobilizing participants and how the 'cultural flow' of the dances is 'punctuated' by national borders and socio-economic relationships. She explores the different meanings articulated around Sabar's transatlantic movement and examines how the dance floor provides the grounds for contested understandings, socio-economic relationships and broader discourses to be re-choreographed in each setting.
Contents
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Map of Senegal in Africa
Introduction
Chapter 1. Trans-Atlantic Travels of West African Dance
Chapter 2. The New York Dance Floor
Chapter 3. Navigating Trans-Atlantic Flows
Chapter 4. Re-Choreographing Sabar
Chapter 5. The Kinaesthetic of Sabar
Chapter 6. Hearing Movements, Seeing Rhythms
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
