I am thrilled to share that Dance Research Journal has published my paper Tidalectic Un/mapping and the Performance of African Diasporic Imagination in the Repertory of Katherine Dunham.
Uzor T-M. Tidalectic Un/mapping and the Performance of African Diasporic Imagination in the Repertory of Katherine Dunham. Dance Research Journal. 2023. 55 (3): 6-29.
In this work, I foreground imagination to consider how African diasporic conditions converge with choreographic expression. My analysis “un/maps” dominant understandings of the choreographic process of mid-twentieth-century African American choreographer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham by expanding Kamau E. Brathwaite's (1993) concept of Tidalectics beyond the Caribbean to the wider African diaspora and a distinctly Caribbean comprehension of diasporic imagination. Utilising datasets and visualizations created by Dunham's Data, I trace how the concept of Brazil is imagined and reimagined within Dunham's archive from 1937 to 1962. In doing so, this paper considers the complex positionality of Dunham as both a pioneering minoritised woman navigating the politics of race, gender, and financial precarity and someone who yielded their imperial privilege as a US citizen through their career to bring nuance to Dunham's narrative as a canonical dance figure.
Of this work, Halifu Osumare generously wrote to me to say that it is,
[...] a major contribution to the ongoing scholarship on the Dunham legacy. Your use of Glissant's work and Braithwaite's concept of Tidalectics are very convincing. They illuminate Miss Dunham's imaginative Brazilian choreography way before she directly explored that African diasporic culture. Indeed, as the lead article in DRJ December 2023 55/3, it significantly adds new scholarship to the ongoing study of Katherine Dunham's oeuvre.
(17th July 2024, shared with permission)
The companion static and interactive visualizations for this essay are all available from our portfolio. If you would like to share any comments or thoughts on this work please do not hesitate to reach out.
Happy reading!