Choreographing African identities: Negritude and the National Ballet of Senegal

This writing analyzes the formation and representation of Senegalese national and ethnic identities through the local and international public presentations of the National Ballet of Senegal. Through an analysis of the Negritude ideology of Leopold Sedar Senghor (president of Senegal between 1960--1980) and its critique by African intellectuals, I situate the performances of the National Ballet of Senegal within broader discussions of African aesthetics, racism and colonization, modernity and tradition, and globalization and cultural diversity. I argue that within the transnational context of "World Dance" the ethnic-centered dance presentations of the National Ballet of Senegal confront a long-lasting and over-determined interpretation of African dance as tribal cultural expression, supported by the racialized reading of African identities in Negritude ideology. Conversely, I also argue that from a national perspective, when interpreted against the Senegalese cultural and political landscape, the work of the National Ballet of Senegal challenges Negritude ideology and the cultural politics pursued by Senghor's and Diouf's governments (1960--80 and 1981--2000 respectively).;I thus offer two overlapping interpretative frameworks for an analysis of the repertory performed by the National Ballet of Senegal at the time of my research. In the first part of the dissertation I read the Ballet's performances---with the aid of Leopold Sdar Senghor's writing---from the point of view of a white international audience. In the second part of the dissertation, I rely on my own ethnographic research (1996--1997) in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to interpret the work of the National Ballet from the point of view of its producers. I present Dakar as a heterogeneous cultural soundscape that connects in rippling echoes the dances of the National Ballet of Senegal to dances performed in the low income quarters of the city, in discotheques, and in tourist enclaves.