Les Ballets Nègres and Les Ballets Africains: Black History Month in Dance, 2021
Black History Month in Dance 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160. A number of companies called Les Ballets Nègres and Les Ballets Africains emerged in the mid-twentieth century. In general, Les Ballets Nègres were Western companies that presented African dance, not least in the United States and the United Kingdom; Les Ballets Africains became the name of the Guinean national dance company, both before Guinea became independent of France in 1958 and after (I remember seeing it in the U.K. in 1989): its toured extensively. These companies were and are part of the same celebration of African dance forms and, more, African musical forms.
I enjoy the “Les Ballets” nomenclature, not just because Guinea and several other African states are francophone, but also because it claims a theatrical validity parallel to “Les Ballets Russes”. (What’s ballet anyway? Plenty of the Diaghilev repertory - notably the Polovtsian Dances from “Prince Igor” and “Scheherazade”, both big hits - had nothing to do with ballet’s traditional five positions of the feet or strict turnout.) Still, the language reminds us that Africa was extensively colonised by European nations. The older posters and programmes, with their use of the word “Negro”, remind us how words and names change.
Other African dance companies and African dance productions have also visited the West with non-francophone names. African dance and African dances - see my posts, earlier this month, on the maypole dances of the African diaspora, the diversity of African dance forms, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual Dance Africa events - have become known in the West.
Inevitably, there’s an important difference between theatrical presentations and the source. The diverse but intense connection of dance to many aspects of life in Africa is missing. But the vitality of African forms has been unmistakeable, and the complex beauty of African musical forms. Bare-breasted dancing women were a thrill to some Western audiences, a shock to others. The unfamiliar sonorities of African instruments, the multilayered intensity of African polyrhythms, and the dense power of African percussion all brought new charges of energy.
Since Africa is a vast continent, generalisations about its music and dance should be avoided. But it’s impressive that many people of African race, notably those whose ancestors were slaves, have chosen to investigate their African cultural ancestry. Links have been re-made that slavery had shattered. Senses of cultural identity have been transformed; are being transformed; will go on being transformed. Since slavery is still widespread, there is no room for complacency.
Thursday 25 February
