| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 Fancy Dress Carnival is a multimedia spectacle wherein masked performers don costumes and dance down the street or compete in an arena with accompanying musicians, usually a brass band, delighting Ghanaian audiences (Fig. 1). Fancy Dress is a distinctive form of carnival1 belonging to Ghana with a deep history that stems from both international and local practices. What sets Fancy Dress apart from other African masquerades are the carnivalesque meanings that connect it to other Black Atlantic carnivals. The colorful costumes, characters, and other fancy aspects exhibiting “play” and fierce characters expressing “power” interact with their spectators as a means to negotiate community identity, demonstrating a complicated relationship with Europe and the United States. Fancy Dress is a form of kakaamotobe, an umbrella term for a fierce display through costume, music, and dance found throughout the country.2 The carnival started around the turn of the twentieth century as a combination of local religious and performance practices with foreign carnival forms. Local performances include those primarily from Fante asafo, paramilitary troops with religious and communal responsibilities, but also from Nzema and Ga practices along the coast.3 British sailors and officers, West Indian troops, Afro-Brazilians and others came to the coast in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bringing with them their comedic skits, carnival, and British Fancy Dress.4 The Fante, one of several Akan groups in southern Ghana, occupy part of the coastline in the Central Region (Fig. 2). Energized by these popular forms of expression, the local Fante created their own version of Fancy Dress to release tensions built during British colonization.5 As Doran H. Ross aptly stated, the Fante of coastal Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast Colony, were “fighting with art” (Ross 1979). Masquerade can manipulate the space for empowerment, and through “selective amnesia” participants and spectators can reinvent a more acceptable memory (than perhaps one of disempowerment) that suits the community (Njoku 2020: 190–92), which is often the case with Black Atlantic carnivals that use performance as a healing tonic from the cultural trauma suffered during the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. Theater in the streets as a performance conducted by the oppressed empowers participants and spectators as a therapeutic form of activism (Boal 1985: 122). Because characters allow performers to enact their desires and frustrations on the streets, Fancy Dress operates as theatrical activism to heal communities and thus has thrived for over a century. Multimedia events incorporating music, dance, costume, and skits provide a mechanism for letting off steam by revealing what is hidden from view. The hidden and unexpected are considered dangerous in many communities. Different rules exist during liminal periods such as those created by a masquerade; chaos
{"title":"Power and Play","authors":"Courtnay Micots","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00683","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 Fancy Dress Carnival is a multimedia spectacle wherein masked performers don costumes and dance down the street or compete in an arena with accompanying musicians, usually a brass band, delighting Ghanaian audiences (Fig. 1). Fancy Dress is a distinctive form of carnival1 belonging to Ghana with a deep history that stems from both international and local practices. What sets Fancy Dress apart from other African masquerades are the carnivalesque meanings that connect it to other Black Atlantic carnivals. The colorful costumes, characters, and other fancy aspects exhibiting “play” and fierce characters expressing “power” interact with their spectators as a means to negotiate community identity, demonstrating a complicated relationship with Europe and the United States. Fancy Dress is a form of kakaamotobe, an umbrella term for a fierce display through costume, music, and dance found throughout the country.2 The carnival started around the turn of the twentieth century as a combination of local religious and performance practices with foreign carnival forms. Local performances include those primarily from Fante asafo, paramilitary troops with religious and communal responsibilities, but also from Nzema and Ga practices along the coast.3 British sailors and officers, West Indian troops, Afro-Brazilians and others came to the coast in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bringing with them their comedic skits, carnival, and British Fancy Dress.4 The Fante, one of several Akan groups in southern Ghana, occupy part of the coastline in the Central Region (Fig. 2). Energized by these popular forms of expression, the local Fante created their own version of Fancy Dress to release tensions built during British colonization.5 As Doran H. Ross aptly stated, the Fante of coastal Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast Colony, were “fighting with art” (Ross 1979). Masquerade can manipulate the space for empowerment, and through “selective amnesia” participants and spectators can reinvent a more acceptable memory (than perhaps one of disempowerment) that suits the community (Njoku 2020: 190–92), which is often the case with Black Atlantic carnivals that use performance as a healing tonic from the cultural trauma suffered during the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. Theater in the streets as a performance conducted by the oppressed empowers participants and spectators as a therapeutic form of activism (Boal 1985: 122). Because characters allow performers to enact their desires and frustrations on the streets, Fancy Dress operates as theatrical activism to heal communities and thus has thrived for over a century. Multimedia events incorporating music, dance, costume, and skits provide a mechanism for letting off steam by revealing what is hidden from view. The hidden and unexpected are considered dangerous in many communities. Different rules exist during liminal periods such as those created by a masquerade; chaos","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"68-81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48662609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Photo Cameroon plunged visitors into superimposed, disparate worlds: the studios of twentieth century Cameroonian photographers and a museum installation where COVID-19 dictated the design. Even the photographers on view—Jacques Toussele (1939–2017), Joseph Chila (b. 1948), and Samuel Finlak (b. 1958)—communicated three different atmospheres and styles. Toussele, the eldest and best-known in the West, expressed an urban, adventurous style. A buzz of activity surrounded his studio, Photo Jacques, which operated in the town of Mbouda from 1959 to 2006. The museum images often suggested this playful hustle-and-bustle. In one emblematic image, two young men wear bell-bottom trousers, sport-shirts, and athletic shoes. Each, prominently displaying a bottle of Sprite, turns away from the other. One looks up, the other down. Behind them, three layers of Toussele’s popular backgrounds are stacked helter-skelter, signaling a wacky lark of a photo session (Fig. 1). Toussele’s nephew and apprentice, Joseph Chila, established his more sober studio, Photo Joseph, in the small town of Mayo Darlé. Working indoors or out, he used a hand-painted cloth background and artificial light. Samuel Finlak worked outdoors with natural light. An itinerant photographer around his village of Atta, he transformed village walls, houses, doorways, and landscapes into picturesque settings (Fig. 2). The three men could thrive as popular studio photographers by seizing the
{"title":"Photo Cameroon: Studio Portraiture, 1970s-1990s","authors":"Leslie W. Rabine","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00686","url":null,"abstract":"Photo Cameroon plunged visitors into superimposed, disparate worlds: the studios of twentieth century Cameroonian photographers and a museum installation where COVID-19 dictated the design. Even the photographers on view—Jacques Toussele (1939–2017), Joseph Chila (b. 1948), and Samuel Finlak (b. 1958)—communicated three different atmospheres and styles. Toussele, the eldest and best-known in the West, expressed an urban, adventurous style. A buzz of activity surrounded his studio, Photo Jacques, which operated in the town of Mbouda from 1959 to 2006. The museum images often suggested this playful hustle-and-bustle. In one emblematic image, two young men wear bell-bottom trousers, sport-shirts, and athletic shoes. Each, prominently displaying a bottle of Sprite, turns away from the other. One looks up, the other down. Behind them, three layers of Toussele’s popular backgrounds are stacked helter-skelter, signaling a wacky lark of a photo session (Fig. 1). Toussele’s nephew and apprentice, Joseph Chila, established his more sober studio, Photo Joseph, in the small town of Mayo Darlé. Working indoors or out, he used a hand-painted cloth background and artificial light. Samuel Finlak worked outdoors with natural light. An itinerant photographer around his village of Atta, he transformed village walls, houses, doorways, and landscapes into picturesque settings (Fig. 2). The three men could thrive as popular studio photographers by seizing the","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"86-89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49182315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| 93 from its birthplace. Navigating through the demonization and politicization of Black hair in America, Tharps also highlights Black hair’s resilience as well as the continued strength and creativity of the Black community. Dr. Ingrid Banks, author of Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness, examines the painting “Internal Battle” by artist and illustrator Keturah Ariel. In this analysis, Dr. Banks references a number of notable figures including W. E. B. Du Bois, Anita Hill, Dr. Willie Morrow, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Madame C.J. Walker, and Angela Davis. Ariel’s painting presents a young woman whose hair, parted down the middle, is stylized straight with blue highlights on the left and in a natural, mid-size afro on the right. The woman wears a pink tank top, gold chain necklace, and a look of indecision on her face. Banks describes how Ariel’s portrait of a young woman captures the all-too-familiar fear around Black hair stylization. Since enslavement, Black hair has been historically subjected to and policed by Eurocentric standards of beauty. This perpetual discrimination, in turn, has challenged the Black community’s freedom to wear any coiffure as they so choose. While Banks goes into greater detail in her essay, “Internal Battle” presents a snapshot of the complex dynamics connected to hair texture and grooming. Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka, a hairstylist, therapist, and assistant professor of psychology at the University of the District of Columbia, begins by providing an explanation for hair texture variation. She then transitions to the traditional care, rituals, and varied significance hair embodied in African societies. During and after colonization and enslavement, Black hair was often manipulated to achieve unnatural textures in order to meet new societal standards. These efforts resulted not only in damaged hair, scalp, and skin but also psychological injury. Mbilishaka advocates that what is needed now are texture-positive counter-narratives and conjoined efforts by psychologists and hair care providers. While Mbilishaka celebrates the larger Black is Beautiful and #TeamNatural movements, it is also encouraging to see the existence of groups like “My Black is Beautiful,” their support of TEXTURES, and the presence of P&G and L’Oréal as sponsors. The “New World” societal standards discussed in Dr. Mbilishaka’s essay are developed further by Zoé Samudzi. She argues that one of the reasons Western standards of beauty took on global power was because Western society feigned ignorance and explicitly rejected the idea that Africa possessed any signs of development. This mentality both justified the damage of imperialism and chattel slavery and labeled textured hair as ugly and unruly. Hair that was stylized and prized in Africa was now forcibly removed and criminalized abroad. While hair strands are dead entities, they have always been alive in cultural connotations and meaning-making. Samudzi takes pride that today, as
bbbb93从它的出生地。通过对美国黑人头发的妖魔化和政治化，塔普斯还强调了黑人头发的韧性，以及黑人社区持续的力量和创造力。《头发很重要:美丽、力量和黑人女性意识》一书的作者英格丽德·班克斯博士审视了艺术家兼插画家凯图拉·阿里尔的画作《内部战斗》。在这个分析中，班克斯博士引用了许多著名的人物，包括杜波依斯、安妮塔·希尔、威利·莫罗博士、南希·海伦·巴勒斯、C.J.沃克夫人和安吉拉·戴维斯。阿里尔的画描绘了一个年轻女子的头发，从中间分开，左边是蓝色的高光直发，右边是自然的中等大小的爆炸头。这个女人穿着一件粉红色的背心，戴着金项链，脸上带着优柔寡断的表情。班克斯描述了阿里尔对一位年轻女性的描绘，她抓住了人们对黑色头发造型的恐惧。自奴役以来，黑头发一直受到以欧洲为中心的审美标准的约束。这种永久的歧视反过来又挑战了黑人社区选择任何发型的自由。虽然班克斯在她的文章中进行了更详细的讨论，但《内心之战》只是简单地介绍了与头发质地和修饰有关的复杂动态。Afiya Mbilishaka博士是一名发型师、治疗师，也是哥伦比亚特区大学的心理学助理教授，她首先对头发质地的变化做出了解释。然后她过渡到非洲社会中传统的护理、仪式和不同意义的头发。在殖民和奴役期间和之后，黑头发经常被加工成不自然的质地，以满足新的社会标准。这些努力不仅导致头发、头皮和皮肤受损，而且造成心理伤害。Mbilishaka主张，现在需要的是质地积极的反叙事，以及心理学家和头发护理提供者的共同努力。当Mbilishaka庆祝更大的黑色是美丽的和#TeamNatural运动时，它也令人鼓舞地看到像“我的黑色是美丽的”这样的团体的存在，他们对TEXTURES的支持，以及宝洁和L’oracimal作为赞助商的存在。在Mbilishaka博士的文章中讨论的“新世界”社会标准由zo<s:1> Samudzi进一步发展。她认为，西方的审美标准之所以具有全球影响力，原因之一是西方社会假装无知，并明确拒绝承认非洲拥有任何发展迹象的观点。这种心态既为帝国主义和奴隶制度的破坏辩护，也给有质感的头发贴上了丑陋和不守规矩的标签。曾经在非洲被视为时尚和珍贵的头发，现在在国外却被强行剪掉，并被定为犯罪。虽然头发是死的实体，但它们在文化内涵和意义创造中一直是活的。Samudzi为今天感到自豪，尽管她的短发可能与辛巴妇女的土著表达不同，“我们都理解我们各自的表现在不同程度上是女性美的顶峰”(第42页)。黑发具有弹性、多样性，令人钦佩。约瑟夫·l·安德伍德(Joseph L. Underwood)博士是texture的联合策展人，他以对黑发和摄影的反思结束了这本文集。安德伍德博士讲述了在殖民和后殖民时期，白人摄影师倾向于在未经黑人允许的情况下，以服务于个人议程的方式拍摄黑人。但安德伍德博士在前言之后提醒人们，来自非洲及其侨民的艺术家也在镜头后面工作。他的文章接着介绍了三位黑人摄影师:英裔利比里亚艺术家莉娜·艾里斯·维克多，塞内加尔艺术家易卜拉欣·蒂亚姆，以及居住在克利夫兰的美国艺术家安布尔·n·福特。在《无辜者的屠杀》中……不。Lina Iris Viktor的《XXIV》，Viktor对欧洲民族学家违背他们的意愿拍摄的黑人尸体感到悲伤，并重新获得了代理。Ibrahima Thiam在他的“复古肖像”系列中为早期西非摄影师的工作带来了新的生活和关注。安珀·n·福特(Amber N. Ford)在她的照片“Pronto”和“Feeders”中记录了合成头发的私密、不完美的层次(轨迹)，以此向这些配饰融入身份的方式致敬。虽然摄影的实践和过去总是有缺陷的，但不同的黑人摄影师的作品和包容将继续重构令人担忧的叙事，并展望更光明的未来。虽然黑发的主题很难耗尽，但TEXTURES的工作建立了一个强大的框架，并给予黑发应有的关注。对于那些对这个话题不太熟悉的人来说，简洁的文章和分类对象提供了一个实质性的调查介绍。
{"title":"PLAN B, a Gathering of Strangers (or) This Is Not Working by Goldendean","authors":"Fiona Siegenthaler","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00689","url":null,"abstract":"| 93 from its birthplace. Navigating through the demonization and politicization of Black hair in America, Tharps also highlights Black hair’s resilience as well as the continued strength and creativity of the Black community. Dr. Ingrid Banks, author of Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness, examines the painting “Internal Battle” by artist and illustrator Keturah Ariel. In this analysis, Dr. Banks references a number of notable figures including W. E. B. Du Bois, Anita Hill, Dr. Willie Morrow, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Madame C.J. Walker, and Angela Davis. Ariel’s painting presents a young woman whose hair, parted down the middle, is stylized straight with blue highlights on the left and in a natural, mid-size afro on the right. The woman wears a pink tank top, gold chain necklace, and a look of indecision on her face. Banks describes how Ariel’s portrait of a young woman captures the all-too-familiar fear around Black hair stylization. Since enslavement, Black hair has been historically subjected to and policed by Eurocentric standards of beauty. This perpetual discrimination, in turn, has challenged the Black community’s freedom to wear any coiffure as they so choose. While Banks goes into greater detail in her essay, “Internal Battle” presents a snapshot of the complex dynamics connected to hair texture and grooming. Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka, a hairstylist, therapist, and assistant professor of psychology at the University of the District of Columbia, begins by providing an explanation for hair texture variation. She then transitions to the traditional care, rituals, and varied significance hair embodied in African societies. During and after colonization and enslavement, Black hair was often manipulated to achieve unnatural textures in order to meet new societal standards. These efforts resulted not only in damaged hair, scalp, and skin but also psychological injury. Mbilishaka advocates that what is needed now are texture-positive counter-narratives and conjoined efforts by psychologists and hair care providers. While Mbilishaka celebrates the larger Black is Beautiful and #TeamNatural movements, it is also encouraging to see the existence of groups like “My Black is Beautiful,” their support of TEXTURES, and the presence of P&G and L’Oréal as sponsors. The “New World” societal standards discussed in Dr. Mbilishaka’s essay are developed further by Zoé Samudzi. She argues that one of the reasons Western standards of beauty took on global power was because Western society feigned ignorance and explicitly rejected the idea that Africa possessed any signs of development. This mentality both justified the damage of imperialism and chattel slavery and labeled textured hair as ugly and unruly. Hair that was stylized and prized in Africa was now forcibly removed and criminalized abroad. While hair strands are dead entities, they have always been alive in cultural connotations and meaning-making. Samudzi takes pride that today, as ","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":" ","pages":"93-94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48822765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lumumba in the Arts","authors":"Gabriel M. Nugent","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00690","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":" ","pages":"95-96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48564146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cloth is Money: Textiles from the Sahel","authors":"Morgan Snoap","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00684","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"82-83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43606564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
My father danced in the first procession of the Componedores. The comparsa theme imitated the habits of the many Lukumí [ethnic Yorùbá] women who lived in this neighborhood. When the com-parsa passed by their homes, these Lukumí would speak in their language and pour water in the streets to “cool the road” as they passed. My father always took me to see the comparsas ; when we saw the Componedores,
{"title":"The Ritual Solidarity of Masked Processions in Calabar, Cameroon, and Cuba","authors":"Ivor L. Miller","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00681","url":null,"abstract":"My father danced in the first procession of the Componedores. The comparsa theme imitated the habits of the many Lukumí [ethnic Yorùbá] women who lived in this neighborhood. When the com-parsa passed by their homes, these Lukumí would speak in their language and pour water in the streets to “cool the road” as they passed. My father always took me to see the comparsas ; when we saw the Componedores,","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"42-53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49143883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 Tourism-fueled economies in Africa and the travel industry produce photo-rich websites with seductive, color-saturated images that draw people to fabulous carnivals across the continent. These industries have vastly outpaced scholarly documentation of carnivals in Africa, which are often assumed to be an isolated and recent phenomenon, but in fact exist in all corners of the continent— Morocco, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Kenya to name a few. Some are very new—although usually built upon an existing performance tradition—while others, such as in Angola and Cape Verde, are thought to be centuries old. As carnival events are growing in popularity, we hope this collection of articles will encourage others (scholars, artists, communities) to join the party and experience the complexity of carnival in Africa. At this time, we know of only two full-length books about carnivals in Africa: Coon Carnival New Year in Cape Town: Past to Present (1999) by Denis-Constant Martin and Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana (2021) by Courtnay Micots. Many other carnivals are mentioned in disparate texts covering diverse regions and disciplines—a fair number published in African Arts. However, many references to carnivals in Africa fly under the radar because authors do not use the term “carnival” even when the event fits the definition of carnival or includes many characteristics of carnival. Until now, the literature on carnival has primarily focused on the Caribbean and Latin American epicenters. The weather vane of carnival history and theory indicates a strong wind blowing steadfast out of Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil (with carnivals that are well known among revelers and scholars alike), but this special issue hints at the vast scope of carnivals in Africa and the geographic decentering of carnival studies. The articles in this special issue demonstrate that Africa is not only a point of origin to explain diasporic performance traditions, Africa is also a place of return and reinvention—disrupting linear models of influence. Humans have found many reasons to form processions and dance in the street. Factors that contributed to carnivals in Africa include the Portuguese (early super-spreaders of Christian festivals and processions), emancipated returnees from the Americas, British maritime culture (suppliers of goods, ideas, and people among the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa), diplomatic programs and global festivals (e.g., the First World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966 in Senegal and FESTAC ’77 in Nigeria), and the intensification of globalization and shifts in the economy (moving from oil to tourism in Nigeria, for example). Another important piece of the puzzle is that festivals were almost always built upon the many preexisting performance traditions involving processions and masquerades. Carni
{"title":"Carnival in Africa","authors":"Amanda B. Carlson, Courtnay Micots","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00678","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 Tourism-fueled economies in Africa and the travel industry produce photo-rich websites with seductive, color-saturated images that draw people to fabulous carnivals across the continent. These industries have vastly outpaced scholarly documentation of carnivals in Africa, which are often assumed to be an isolated and recent phenomenon, but in fact exist in all corners of the continent— Morocco, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Kenya to name a few. Some are very new—although usually built upon an existing performance tradition—while others, such as in Angola and Cape Verde, are thought to be centuries old. As carnival events are growing in popularity, we hope this collection of articles will encourage others (scholars, artists, communities) to join the party and experience the complexity of carnival in Africa. At this time, we know of only two full-length books about carnivals in Africa: Coon Carnival New Year in Cape Town: Past to Present (1999) by Denis-Constant Martin and Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana (2021) by Courtnay Micots. Many other carnivals are mentioned in disparate texts covering diverse regions and disciplines—a fair number published in African Arts. However, many references to carnivals in Africa fly under the radar because authors do not use the term “carnival” even when the event fits the definition of carnival or includes many characteristics of carnival. Until now, the literature on carnival has primarily focused on the Caribbean and Latin American epicenters. The weather vane of carnival history and theory indicates a strong wind blowing steadfast out of Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil (with carnivals that are well known among revelers and scholars alike), but this special issue hints at the vast scope of carnivals in Africa and the geographic decentering of carnival studies. The articles in this special issue demonstrate that Africa is not only a point of origin to explain diasporic performance traditions, Africa is also a place of return and reinvention—disrupting linear models of influence. Humans have found many reasons to form processions and dance in the street. Factors that contributed to carnivals in Africa include the Portuguese (early super-spreaders of Christian festivals and processions), emancipated returnees from the Americas, British maritime culture (suppliers of goods, ideas, and people among the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa), diplomatic programs and global festivals (e.g., the First World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966 in Senegal and FESTAC ’77 in Nigeria), and the intensification of globalization and shifts in the economy (moving from oil to tourism in Nigeria, for example). Another important piece of the puzzle is that festivals were almost always built upon the many preexisting performance traditions involving processions and masquerades. Carni","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"6-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45041438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 What is the place of the street in the production and consumption of contemporary and commodified African festival? How has the street become a curatorial platform and a contested space through which visuality, cultural aesthetic and commodification, play, vulgarity, and the secular coalesce and tangle in an attempt to create a composite festival that produces different layers of historical, cultural, and visual analysis? (Fig. 1). To answer these questions, we need to briefly look at how the street has been theorized by scholars in the social sciences. The street has been defined as being “both contradictory and complex... distinctive but contested social space” as well as a space for public engagement and community-making (Hubbard and Lyon 2018). Others see the street as venue of governmental surveillance, secular power demonstration, class categorization, and legal systematization (Coleman and Sim 2000). The plasticity of defining the street is multifaceted, yet it overlaps its cultural and visual functionality. In this essay, I read Calabar Festival and carnival and the street as cultural theater through the which performance, play, and visuality are exhibited. Using photographs as my tool of analysis and historical resource, I conceptualize the street as a space of convergence where culture, visuality, creativity, economy, the secular, and the vulgar meet and entangle, creating changes, rhythms, and movements in cultural, political, leisure, and visual aesthetics1 (Fig. 2). While the social life of the street is complex, fluid, and seemingly boundless, its cultural, performance, play, and visual agency seems to diminish and invert the uncanny and domineering “political, legal, and economic forces that reinforce existing social hierarchies and patterns of exclusion” (Barker 2009) (Fig. 3). The Calabar Festival and Carnival is a thirty-one to thirty-two day yearly event that started in 2004/2005. The event takes place on the streets of Calabar, while certain aspects of the events are hosted at city centers like Calabar Stadium, Eleven-Eleven arena, Calabar Cultural Centre, and the Calabar Municipal Local Government ground, where the popular Carnival Village Market is positioned. In 2004/2005, the carnival was originally dubbed “Calabar Carnival Extravaganza” by the organizers, where a few “paradelike walk-about” revelers displayed symbols of different tourism sites and other forms and symbols of government projects with very sparse costuming (Carlson 2010: 47). Performances are orchestrated by different groups from the Cross River Regions and different national and international groups, while other contemporary entertainment events and popular performances are prospective features of the event at different gravity each year (Fig. 4). The festival/carnival dominantly clones the Caribbean carnival genre, with close parallels in performance, costuming, props, colors, floats, and other forms of cultural te
b|非洲艺术冬季2022年第55卷，第1期。街道在当代和商品化的非洲节日的生产和消费中的地位是什么?街道是如何成为一个策展平台和一个有争议的空间，通过它，视觉性、文化审美和商品化、游戏、粗俗和世俗融合和纠结，试图创造一个复合的节日，产生不同层次的历史、文化和视觉分析?(图1)为了回答这些问题，我们需要简要地看看社会科学学者是如何将街道理论化的。这条街被定义为“既矛盾又复杂……独特但有争议的社会空间”，以及公众参与和社区建设的空间(Hubbard and Lyon 2018)。其他人将街道视为政府监视、世俗权力展示、阶级分类和法律系统化的场所(Coleman and Sim 2000)。定义街道的可塑性是多方面的，但它重叠了它的文化和视觉功能。在这篇文章中，我将Calabar节和狂欢节以及街道视为文化剧场，通过表演，戏剧和视觉性来展示。我利用照片作为我的分析工具和历史资源，将街道概念化为文化、视觉、创意、经济、世俗和庸俗相遇和纠缠的融合空间，创造文化、政治、休闲和视觉美学的变化、节奏和运动1(图2)。虽然街道的社会生活是复杂的、流动的，似乎是无限的，但它的文化、表演、游戏、视觉代理似乎削弱和颠倒了神秘和霸道的“政治、法律和经济力量，这些力量加强了现有的社会等级和排斥模式”(Barker 2009)(图3)。卡拉巴尔节和狂欢节是2004/2005年开始的一年一度的31到32天的活动。活动在卡拉巴尔的街道上举行，而活动的某些方面在城市中心举行，如卡拉巴尔体育场、11 - 11竞技场、卡拉巴尔文化中心和卡拉巴尔市政地方政府场地，那里有受欢迎的嘉年华村市场。在2004/2005年，狂欢节最初被组织者称为“Calabar carnival Extravaganza”，几个“游行式步行”的狂欢者穿着非常稀疏的服装，展示着不同旅游景点的象征和其他形式的政府项目的象征(Carlson 2010: 47)。表演由来自克罗斯河地区的不同团体以及不同的国家和国际团体精心策划，而其他当代娱乐活动和流行表演是该活动每年不同程度的前瞻性特征(图4)。节日/狂欢节主要复制加勒比狂欢节类型，在表演，服装，道具，颜色，花车和其他形式的文化技术方面有着密切的相似之处。这个节日最初是围绕着现有的文化传统和埃菲克人的表演而建立的，被称为mbre ukabare-isua(克罗斯河地区流行的圣诞节庆祝活动)，已经将其表演和审美理想转向加勒比狂欢节类型，试图重塑一个精心制作的现代化和混合的节日，现在正在争取国际认可和赞助(图5-6)。在这里，我把自己定位为“视觉苦行僧”(既是制作人又是档案保管员)我试图以视觉形式记录当代卡拉巴尔狂欢节的历史(Keller 2008)。在这篇摄影文章中，我从我的摄影档案中提取了2019年在卡拉巴尔实地考察期间拍摄的一千多张照片。卡拉巴尔是克洛斯河州一个典型的尼日利亚城市。虽然卡拉巴尔有着丰富的文化渊源和世界主义，但矛盾的是，卡拉巴尔是一个以社会、经济和政治不稳定而闻名的文化地区，而且腐败现象猖獗，特别是在调查政府赞助的活动方面(图7)。我在这篇摄影文章中的重点主要是卡拉巴尔狂欢节，这是精心制作的31至32天的卡拉巴尔节日和狂欢节的核心组成部分。我考虑了Calabar狂欢节和街道如何成为有争议的景观，其中表演视觉技术与社会，文化和政治纠缠在一起。这篇文章展示了街道如何成为历史创造、文化创造、表演和消费、策划和推进视觉实践、表演和技术的重要组成部分。我考虑的是摄影如何发挥“原始历史”的作用(Edwards 2001: 5)，创造文化狂欢的文件(图8)。然而，狂欢的视觉记录都是通过摄影散文
{"title":"Calabar Carnival","authors":"Nsima Stanislaus Udo","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00680","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 What is the place of the street in the production and consumption of contemporary and commodified African festival? How has the street become a curatorial platform and a contested space through which visuality, cultural aesthetic and commodification, play, vulgarity, and the secular coalesce and tangle in an attempt to create a composite festival that produces different layers of historical, cultural, and visual analysis? (Fig. 1). To answer these questions, we need to briefly look at how the street has been theorized by scholars in the social sciences. The street has been defined as being “both contradictory and complex... distinctive but contested social space” as well as a space for public engagement and community-making (Hubbard and Lyon 2018). Others see the street as venue of governmental surveillance, secular power demonstration, class categorization, and legal systematization (Coleman and Sim 2000). The plasticity of defining the street is multifaceted, yet it overlaps its cultural and visual functionality. In this essay, I read Calabar Festival and carnival and the street as cultural theater through the which performance, play, and visuality are exhibited. Using photographs as my tool of analysis and historical resource, I conceptualize the street as a space of convergence where culture, visuality, creativity, economy, the secular, and the vulgar meet and entangle, creating changes, rhythms, and movements in cultural, political, leisure, and visual aesthetics1 (Fig. 2). While the social life of the street is complex, fluid, and seemingly boundless, its cultural, performance, play, and visual agency seems to diminish and invert the uncanny and domineering “political, legal, and economic forces that reinforce existing social hierarchies and patterns of exclusion” (Barker 2009) (Fig. 3). The Calabar Festival and Carnival is a thirty-one to thirty-two day yearly event that started in 2004/2005. The event takes place on the streets of Calabar, while certain aspects of the events are hosted at city centers like Calabar Stadium, Eleven-Eleven arena, Calabar Cultural Centre, and the Calabar Municipal Local Government ground, where the popular Carnival Village Market is positioned. In 2004/2005, the carnival was originally dubbed “Calabar Carnival Extravaganza” by the organizers, where a few “paradelike walk-about” revelers displayed symbols of different tourism sites and other forms and symbols of government projects with very sparse costuming (Carlson 2010: 47). Performances are orchestrated by different groups from the Cross River Regions and different national and international groups, while other contemporary entertainment events and popular performances are prospective features of the event at different gravity each year (Fig. 4). The festival/carnival dominantly clones the Caribbean carnival genre, with close parallels in performance, costuming, props, colors, floats, and other forms of cultural te","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"32-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46505674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 [B]lack diaspora traditions for masking and masquerade— from the carnival arts of Trinidad or New Orleans to the wigs and gold chains of the bling aesthetic—involve the construction of spectacular surfaces that charm, seduce, and beguile the eye but also ... the artifice of such masking hides and protects the inner world of diaspora subjectivity ... —Kobena Mercer (2011: 4, emphasis mine)
{"title":"Dancing Altars","authors":"E. Hill","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00682","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts WINTER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 4 [B]lack diaspora traditions for masking and masquerade— from the carnival arts of Trinidad or New Orleans to the wigs and gold chains of the bling aesthetic—involve the construction of spectacular surfaces that charm, seduce, and beguile the eye but also ... the artifice of such masking hides and protects the inner world of diaspora subjectivity ... —Kobena Mercer (2011: 4, emphasis mine)","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"54-67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44878855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An introduction is presented in which author discusses articles on topics including focuses on N95 masks which have none of panache of a fine masquerade performance, but they have gained the cultural force of a powerful masquerade society, drawing authority from spiritual and political sanction.
{"title":"New Masks, New Meanings: Covid Perspectives on African Art History: Part 1: Behind The Mask: African Art History in a Pandemic Era","authors":"Victoria L. Rovine","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00676","url":null,"abstract":"An introduction is presented in which author discusses articles on topics including focuses on N95 masks which have none of panache of a fine masquerade performance, but they have gained the cultural force of a powerful masquerade society, drawing authority from spiritual and political sanction.","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"55 1","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42522098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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