THEA 8400 / ROML 8000

African Diaspora Theatre and Performance in the Multilingual Americas

Tuesday 3:30-6:15, Fine Arts 310
Spring 2015

Professor: Dr. Emily Sahakian

Office: Fine Arts 254
Office Hours: Thursday 1-3pm, and by appointment
Email: sahakian@uga.edu

Course Description
Across the Americas, one finds African diasporic populations, African-derived
performance practices, and Africanist influences and worldviews. The ways in which societies
and individuals remember this Africanist presence, however, vary widely. While black political
identities and historical memory have long been prominent in Haiti, other countries have
historically disavowed legacies of blackness, hiding the black grandma in the closet, to quote
Henry Louis Gates Jr.s summation of black culture and ancestry in Mexico. Scholars tend to
divide the Americas by language and nation, but when we privilege African diaspora theatre and
performance, we see a bridge across linguistic, national and cultural differences.
In this course, we will investigate African diaspora theatre and performance, broadly
conceived to encompass theatre, ritual, carnival, music, dance, storytelling, and drama. We will
foreground diasporic histories and African-derived knowledges, and evaluate the theories and
methodologies other scholars deploy to understand the African diaspora through the lens of
theatre and performance. We will also explore how performance addresses slaverys legacy, how
it negotiates cultural identity from within the opposing poles of sameness and difference, and
how performers and playwrights enact oppositional practices to local governments, institutions,
and transnational economic systems.
Diaspora, as Brent Hayes Edwards and other critics point out, is enacted through
translation. Scholars and teachers of the African diaspora must learn to act as gatekeepers at the
crossroads, like the vodou deity Legba. In this course, our investigation will be interdisciplinary,
transnational, and multilingual in nature. All plays will be available in the original French,
Spanish or Portuguese as well as in English translation; students with the appropriate language
skills should read the plays in their original languages. Each student will develop two projects (a
research paper and a teaching/dramaturgy project) relating her or his research interests and
professional goals to the African diaspora performance in the Americas.

Required texts (available at the bookstore)

Patrick Chamoiseau, Creole Folktales [Au temps de lantan] (1994)
Yvonne Daniel, Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban
Yoruba, and Bahian Candombl (2005)
Anita Gonzlez, Afro-Mexico: Dancing between Myth and Reality (2010)
Elizabeth McAlister, Rara!: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora
(2002)
Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (1996)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995)

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Other assigned readings and viewings
Plays and critical articles/chapters can be downloaded on eLC.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.s series, Black in Latin America, is viewable through the PBS
website (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/) or YouTube.
Some students will assign an additional play, video or primary text in preparation
for your teaching/dramaturgy presentation. Email your assignments to me one week
before your presentation, and I will upload them to eLC.
Regarding the recommended reading, journal articles may be accessed through the
librarys electronic resources; books are on library course reserve.

Evaluation
1. Discussion: participation in all class sessions.
2. Three short papers: In preparation for your final paper, you will write three short
papers that investigate a case study of your choice (ideally related in some way to
your dissertation) in light of three flexible writing prompts: 1) Performance
ethnography and the African diaspora; 2) African diaspora literacy; 3) Performance
and historiography in the African diaspora. The twofold goal of these short papers is
to illuminate your own research area, while bringing your existing interests and
expertise into dialogue with our courses central theoretical and methodological
concerns. These papers should be approximately 3-4 pages. Due in hardcopy Feb. 17,
March 24 and April 14. Papers will be accepted in English or French.
3. Teaching/dramaturgy presentation: Choose a text that you would like to teach in a
university or other setting (e.g., K-12 classroom or a professional theatre) and present
your plan to the class. You may present on a play from the syllabus or another play,
video, or other primary text of your choosing. On the day of your presentation, you
should bring a detailed lesson plan (please make copies and distribute them to all
students), and explain your planned activities and pedagogical goals.
4. Final teaching project: This project could be a syllabus for the larger course your
lesson plan fits into. Alternatively, you might prepare a dramaturgical/educational
packet for a professional theatre or for distribution to public schools. Consider your
own professional goals and make the project relevant for you. If you would like to
propose another option for this assignment, please check with me in advance.
5. In-class conference presentation of your research (15 minutes): Give a paper
that you could develop to present at a regional or national conference. We will have a
mock conference during week 15.
6. Final paper (12-15 pages): You should incorporate feedback received from your
classmates and professor as well as further research to re-work your conference
presentation into a scholarly paper. Remember that language appropriate for an oral
presentation will need to be revised for the written paper. The goal is to write a solid
draft of a paper that could be revised and submitted for publication and/or
incorporated into the dissertation. Papers will be accepted in English or French.

Course Schedule

Week 1, Jan. 6
Syllabus and Introductions

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Prelude: Theorizing Diaspora, between Translation and Performance

Week 2, Jan. 13
Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora (eLC)
Brent Hayes Edwards, The Uses of Diaspora (eLC)
Sandra Richards, African Diaspora Drama (eLC)
Recommended Reading:
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity in Theorizing Diaspora (on course
reserve in the library)
Kim Butler, Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse, Diaspora 10.2 (2001): 189-219.

Week 3, Jan. 20
Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, Diasporas and Performance (eLC)
Anthea Kraut, Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of
Josephine Baker, Nora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham (eLC)
Paul Carter Harrison, Mother/Word: Black Theatre in the African Continuum:
Word/Song as Method, (eLC)

Week 4, Jan. 27: Meet in the LACSI conference room (290 S. Hull St.)
douard Glissant, Black History/Histoire de ngre (eLC)
Glissant, Theatre, consciousness of the people/Thtre conscience du peuple (eLC)
Workshop with the translator, Dr. Andrew Daily, and Dr. Jonathan Baillehache

I. Performance Ethnography

Week 5, Feb. 3
Black in Latin America, Episode 1. Haiti and the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided
Elizabeth McAlister, Rara!

Week 6, Feb. 10
Yvonne Daniel, Dancing Wisdom, Chapters 1-6
Joan Dayan, Vodoun, or the Voice of the Gods (eLC)

Week 7, Feb. 17
Black in Latin America, Episode 4. Mexico and Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet
Anita Gonzlez, Afro-Mexico
Short Paper 1 Due: Performance Ethnography
Recommended: Micaela Daz-Snchez and Alexandro D. Hernndez, The Son Jarocho as Afro-Mexican
Resistance Music, Journal of Pan African Studies 6.1 (2013): 87-209.

II. Diaspora Literacy

Week 8, Feb. 24
Vv Clark, Developing Diaspora Literacy and Marasa Consciousness (eLC)
Black in Latin America, Episode 2. Cuba: The Next Revolution
Dancing Wisdom, Chapters 8 and 9
Presentation 1 (Aaron): Pepe Carril, Shango de Ima/Shango de Ima (eLC)

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Week 9, March 3
Black in Latin America, Episode 3. Brazil: A Racial Paradise?
Dancing Wisdom, Chapter 7
Presentation 2 (Javier): Alberto Pedo Torriente, Manteca/Manteca (eLC)
Presentation 3 (Lisbeth): Abdias do Nascimento, Sortilege/Sortilgio (eLC)
Abdias do Nascimento, African Culture and Brazilian Art (eLC)
Leda Martins and Phyllis Peres, A Ritual Choreography: The Orishas Steps in Sortilgio
(eLC)

Spring Break

Week 10, March 17

Gilbert and Tompkins, Traditional Enactments: Ritual and Carnival (eLC)
Presentation 4 (Alex): Ina Csaire, Island Memories/Mmoires dIsles (eLC)
Presentation 5 (Jean): Gloria Rolando, Eyes of the Rainbow (watch the film at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hsp5LEtcb0).
Recommended:
Erroll Hill, The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre (on course reserve)
Emily Sahakian, Frameworks for Interpreting French Caribbean Womens Theatre: Ina Csaires Island
Memories at the Thtre du Campagnol, Theatre Survey 50.1 (2009): 67-90.

Week 11, March 24

Patrick Chamoiseau, Creole Folktales/Au temps de lantan
Presentation 6 (Wyatt): Derek Walcott, Ti-Jean and His Brothers (eLC)
Presentation 7 (Jennifer): Dennis Scott, An Echo in the Bone (eLC)
Short Paper 2 Due: Diaspora Literacy

III. Performance Historiography

Week 12, March 31

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
Presentation 8 (Johanna): Maryse Cond, In the Time of Revolution/An tan revolisyon (eLC)
Recommended: Deborah B Gaensbauer, Protean Truths: History as Performance in Maryse Conds An Tan
Revolisyon. The French Review 76.6 (2003): 1139-50.

Week 13, April 7

Susan Thomas, Introduction, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 in Cuban Zarzuela (eLC)
Jill Lane, Black/face Publics (eLC)
Presentation 9 (Iona): Aim Csaire, The Tragedy of King Christophe/La tragdie du roi
Christophe (eLC)
Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela and Jill Lane, Blackface Cuba are on reserve in the library.

Week 14, April 14

Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance
Short Paper 3 Due: Performance Historiography

Week 15, April 21

Conference Presentations

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Thursday April 30: Upload your final teaching projects to the eLC dropbox before 5pm
Tuesday May 5: Upload your final papers to the eLC dropbox before 5pm

Citations for articles and chapters on eLC:

Clark, Vv. Developing Diaspora Literacy and Marasa Consciousness. Theatre Survey, vol.
50, no. 1 (2009): 9-18.

Dayan, Joan. Vodoun, or the Voice of the Gods. In Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santera,
Obeah, and the Caribbean. Margarite Fernndez Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert,
eds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

Edwards, Brent Hayes, The Uses of Diaspora. Social Text vol. 19 (2001): 45-73.

Gilbert, Helen and Jacqueline Lo, Diasporas and Performance. In Diasporas: Concepts,
Intersections, Identities. Kim Knott and Sean McLoughlin, eds. London: Zed Books,
2010.
Gilbert, Helen and Joanne Tompkins, Traditional Enactments: Ritual and Carnival. In Post-
Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics. London: Routledge, 1996.

Glissant, Theatre, consciousness of the people. In Caribbean Discourse. Trans. J. Michael

Dash. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1989
-----. Thtre conscience du peuple. Acoma vol. 2 (1971): 41-59. Reprinted in Discours
antillais. Paris: Gallimard, 1981.
Hall, Stuart. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference.
Jonathan Rutherford, ed. London: Lawrence and Wishcart, 1990.

Harrison, Paul Carter. Mother Word: Black Theatre in the African Continuum: Word/Song as
Method. In Totem Voices: Plays from the Black World Repertory. Paul Carter Harrison,
ed. New York: Grove Press, 1989.

Kraut, Anthea. Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of Josephine
Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham. Theatre Journal vol. 55, no. 3
(2003): 433-50.

Jill Lane, Black/face Publics: The Social Bodies of Fraternidad. In Critical Theory and
Performance, 2nd ed. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach, eds. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Martins, Leda and Phyllis Peres. A Ritual Choreography: The Orishas Steps in Sortilgio.
Callaloo vol. 18, no. 4 (1995): 863-70.

Abdias do Nascimento. African Culture and Brazilian Art. Journal of Black Studies vol. 8,

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 no. 4 (1978): 389-422.

Richards, Sandra L. African Diaspora drama. In The Cambridge Companion to African

American Theatre. Harvey Young, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.