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Practices of Rooting & Spaces of Performative Becoming

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Practices of Rooting & Spaces of Performative Becoming Practices of Rooting & Spaces of Performative Becoming: An Exploration of British Caribbean Diasporic Identities through Dance Submitted by Tia-Monique Uzor To De Montfort University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Dance September 2020 Abstract This thesis is concerned with how identity forms within the movement of British Caribbean Diasporic artists. The study focuses on how this occurs within the work of H Patten, Greta Mendez, Jamila Johnson-Small, and Akeim Toussaint Buck. Using an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, the thesis offers the notion practices of rooting as a cultural process that British Caribbean Diasporic people engage in to negotiate their identities. Through reading the case study artists’ work, the research determines that practices of rooting that are choreographic form what it conceptualises as spaces of performative becoming through which the case study artists (re)create, affirm and establish their identities. The research reads the choreography of the case study artists through observations that it has made from live and recorded performance. Further insights into each artist have been gained through engaging in conversation, performance, movement, and through a methodology created by this research called embodied exchange sessions. Embodied exchange sessions are a process that uses movement and conversation as a form of knowledge production that both artist and researcher participate in. The thesis utilises embodied knowledge with information gained through the aforementioned processes and places them in critical dialogue within a framework of analysis that draws upon the work of theorists within Caribbean Studies, Cultural Studies, Dance Studies and Postcolonial studies, including the work of Stuart Hall, Edouard Glissant, Homi Bhabha, Paul Gilroy, W.E.B Du Bois, Rex Nettleford, Yvonne Daniels, and Susan Foster. This thesis reveals how choreography can function as a means of establishing multiplicitous, complex, and transnational British Caribbean Diasporic identities when it is engaged with as a practice of rooting. The analysis of choreographic work created by British Caribbean Diasporic artists gives insights into British Caribbean Diasporic identities as they continue to expand, shift, and grow, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the nuances present within such identities. i Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... i Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iv Prologue .................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Methods ............................................................................................................................ 8 1.1.1 Data collection ......................................................................................................... 10 1.1.2 Framework of analysis............................................................................................. 17 1.2 Interdisciplinary Positions .............................................................................................. 18 1.3 Thesis Overview and Chapter Plan ................................................................................ 30 Chapter 2: Locating British Caribbean Diasporic Identities ............................................ 34 2.1 Locating British Caribbean Diasporic Identities ............................................................ 35 2.1.1 Postmodern and Modern identities .......................................................................... 35 2.1.2 British Caribbean Diasporic Identities .................................................................... 39 2.1.3 Britishness ............................................................................................................... 42 2.1.4 Caribbean Identities ................................................................................................. 48 2.1.5 Diasporic Identities .................................................................................................. 67 2.2 A Historical Overview of British Caribbean Diasporic Identities ................................. 74 2.3 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 99 Chapter 3: Dance and British Caribbean Diasporic Identities ....................................... 101 3.1 Dancing in Caribbean Contact Zones ........................................................................... 102 3.2 Windrush and Beyond - 1940s-1970s .......................................................................... 116 3.3 First-generation Artists 1970s-1990s ........................................................................... 127 3.3.1 African and Caribbean Dance Companies ............................................................. 131 3.3.2 Contemporary Dance and British Caribbean Diasporic artists .............................. 136 3.4 Second-generation Artists 1990s -2019 ....................................................................... 145 Chapter 4: Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming ........................ 155 4.1 Practices of rooting ....................................................................................................... 156 4.2 Performative Becoming ................................................................................................ 165 4.3 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 172 Chapter 5: Reading Rooting in H Patten’s Ina De Wildanis ............................................ 173 Chapter 6: Reading Rooting in Greta Mendez’s Programme of Extracts ..................... 202 Chapter 7: Reading Rooting in Jamila Johnson-Small’s i ride in soft colour and focus/ no longer anywhere ............................................................................................................... 222 Chapter 8: Reading Rooting in Akeim Toussaint Buck’s Windows of Displacement ..... 247 Chapter 9: Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 266 ii 9.1 Practices of Rooting ..................................................................................................... 268 9.1.1 Double Consciousness ........................................................................................... 269 9.1.2 Caribcentric ........................................................................................................... 272 9.1.3 Resistance .............................................................................................................. 280 9.2 Spaces of Performative Becoming ............................................................................... 284 Appendix A: Introduction to the Case Study Artists ....................................................... 293 H Patten .............................................................................................................................. 293 Greta Mendez ..................................................................................................................... 293 Jamila Johnson-Small ......................................................................................................... 294 Akeim Toussaint Buck ....................................................................................................... 295 Appendix B: Glossary of Africanist Movement Aesthetics .............................................. 296 Curvilinear .......................................................................................................................... 296 Cultural Fusions/Inclusions ................................................................................................ 296 Dimensionality ................................................................................................................... 297 Epic Memory ...................................................................................................................... 298 Polycentric .......................................................................................................................... 298 Polyrhythm ......................................................................................................................... 299 The Aesthetic of the Cool................................................................................................... 300 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 302 iii Acknowledgements All praise and glory to Jesus, my saviour who has been with me every hour. I would like to thank Midlands4Cities and De Montfort University for supporting this research, through this opportunity I have grown beyond what I imagined. I would especially like to thank Sally Doughty, Michael Huxley and Marie Hay for all their support during this process. A
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