Between Duty and Romance: The Attraction of Sounding “Black” in Paris

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" Between Duty and Romance: The Attraction of Sounding “Black” in Paris "
Wilson, Anndretta Lyle

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	927053
Doc. No	:	LA5mx9n199
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Wilson, Anndretta Lyle
Title & Author	:	Between Duty and Romance: The Attraction of Sounding “Black” in Paris [Article]\ Wilson, Anndretta Lyle
Title of Periodical	:	Journal of Transnational American Studies
Volume/ Issue Number	:	10/2
Date	:	2019
Abstract	:	The histories of Black Americans who significantly influenced French life and culture in Paris are hardly marked or visible across the most frequented tourist destinations or within state-sponsored museums dedicated to national history. Instead, certain tourist-oriented live performances constitute audible monuments to Black soldiers and musicians. Audible monuments are sound objects constructed through live orature, collective participation, or sound-producing movements that recall history and memory for the purpose of witness engagement or tourist consumption. Toward a critical analysis grounded in performance studies theory this essay first replays and reinterprets the music and military histories shared between African-descended US soldiers and the nation of France as a gendered and misaligned romance, and then suggests how performance events like the tours of “Black Paris” can rehearse that romance and then rupture it by a contemporary African presence.