African performance arts and political acts

"African Performance Arts and Political Acts presents innovative formulations for how African performance and the arts shape the narratives of cultural history and politics. This collection, edited by Naomi André, Yolanda Covington-Ward, and Jendele Hungbo, engages with a breadth of African countries and art forms, bringing together speech, hip hop, religious healing and gesture, theater and social justice, opera, radio announcements, protest songs, and migrant workers' dances. The spaces include village communities, city landscapes, prisons, urban hostels, Township theaters, opera houses, and broadcasts through the airwaves on television and radio as well as in cyberspace. Essays focus on case studies from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania."

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Performance and Politics in Africa: Approaches and Perspectives | Naomi André, Yolanda Covington-Ward, and Jendele Hungbo -- The Play of Social and Political Roles in Everyday Life -- Performing Political Identities: Senegalese Speakers and Their Audiences (Senegal) | Judith T. Irvine, University of Michigan -- The Socio-poetics of Sanakuyaagal: Performing Joking Relationships in West Africa (Senegal) | Nikolas Sweet, Grinnell College -- Participation beyond Gratitude: "Sterling Greetings" and the Mediation of Social Ties on Nigerian Radio (Nigeria) | Jendele Hungbo, Bowen University (Iwo, Nigeria) -- Expressions of Identity, Consciousness, and Migration -- The Phenomenology of Collapsing Worlds: isiShameni Dance and the Politics of Proximity in Jeppestown, Johannesburg (South Africa) | Thomas M. Pooley, University of South Africa -- African Heritage Revealed through Musical Encounters and Political Ideologies: John Frederick Matheus and Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga! and Reuben Tholakele Caluza and Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo's Moshoeshoe (South Africa) | Innocentia Jabulisile Mhlambi, University of the Witwatersrand -- Discussing the Play Angalia Ni Mimi!, and a Performance by the Playwright, Marthe Djilo Kamga (Cameroon) | Frieda Ekotto, University of Michigan -- Angalia Ni Mimi! Therapy of a Thwarted Artist. A Play by Marthe Djilo Kamga (Cameroon) | Marthe Djilo Kamga (An Independent Artist) -- Gendered Messages of Social Change -- Surviving Gender Violence: Activating Community Stories for Social Change (South Africa) -- Anita Gonzalez, Georgetown University Gangsters, Masculinity, and Ethics: Underground Rapping in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) | David Kerr, University of Birmingham and University of Johannesburg -- Songs of Protest and Activist Opera.