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" Performing Citizens and Subjects: "
Montoya, Aaron Tracy
Errington, Shelly
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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898699
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TL1w33f4s5
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| Main Entry
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Kinder, Kimberley
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| Title & Author
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Performing Citizens and Subjects:\ Montoya, Aaron TracyErrington, Shelly
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| Date
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2016
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2016
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| Abstract
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This dissertation examines the politics and economics of the cultural performance of dance, placing this expressive form of communication within the context of historic changes in Mozambique, from the colonial encounter, to the liberation movement and the post-colonial socialist nation, to the neoliberalism of the present. The three dances examined here represent different regimes, contrasting forms of subjectivity, and very different relations of the individual to society. N’Tsay (1984) is a dance produced by the National Song and Dance Company (CNCD) about a female heroine; suggesting that the people of Mozambique will find a way to stand up to the violence and wretchedness of the present as they stood up to it in the past. Nyau is a traditional dance genre performed by the male Nyau secret society and designated UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. When performed in the context of national festivals nyau is about hinterland, renegade males calling on the spirits of the ancestors to assert power over both the rulers and the ruled. Augusto Cuvilas’ controversial choreographic work, Um Solo para Cinco (2004), contrasts with the ascendance of nyau in the 2000s. Cuvilas, trained in Mozambique, Cuba, and France, was the darling of the CNCD but eventually was rejected and reviled, and murdered in 2007. Um Solo para Cinco is a classic for Maputo art-goers and public intellectuals, but something better forgotten for public officials and religious leaders. Whereas masked male nyau dancers excite audiences with their performances of menace and disorder, the five female dancers in Um Solo para Cinco create anguish by revealing their naked bodies. The female dancers perform the disintegration of social life and their dispossession in the current era compared to the prowess of uncontainable male hinterland dancers. Um Solo para Cinco expresses another form of resistance, quieter but in many ways more powerful, another form of subjectivity that reveals the precariousness of everyday work and life. The dances are wonderful examples of body politics; they recall the system of Citizens and Subjects that was instituted through colonial rule and communicate Mozambicans experiences with this legacy in contemporary social life.
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Montoya, Aaron Tracy
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UC Santa Cruz
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