Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewStaging Ghana is a valuable addition to the slowly growing body of work about dance and dance companies in contemporary Africa.
* Ghana Studies *
With theory well grounded in (and balanced by) richly textured ethnography and analyses, Staging Ghana is a valuable addition to the literature in the ever-growing fields of African studies and performance studies. Its examination of nationalism, creativity, postcolonialism, culture, music, and dance give it great multidisciplinary relevance.
* Anthropos *
Schauert's ethnographic overview of state dance ensembles in Ghana is based on fieldwork and collaborative artistic productions. A musician himself, Schauert . . . presents first-person narratives of creative experiments alongside excellent historical overviews of music and dance in intertwined performances of the Ghana Dance Ensemble (based at the Univ. of Ghana, Legon) and the National Dance Company of Ghana. Recommended.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
List of PURL Audio and Video Files
Introduction: Crossing Crocodiles and Staging Ethnography
1. Beyond Ethnicity, Beyond Ghana: Staging and Embodying African Personality
2. Dancing Essences: Sensational Staging and the Cosmopolitan Politics of Authentication
3. Soldiers of Culture: Discipline, Artistry, and Alternative Education
4. Speak to the Wind: Staging the State and Performing Indirection
5. "We are the Originals!": A Tale of Two Troupes and the Birth of Contemporary Dance in Ghana
6. Politics of Personality: Creativity, Competition, and Self-Expression within a Unitary Matrix
Conclusion: Dancing Between Self, State, and Nation
Notes
References and Bibliography
Index
