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Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer: The twerk dance in

Makau Kitata

To cite this article: Makau Kitata (2020): Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer: The twerk dance in Kenya, Agenda, DOI: 10.1080/10130950.2020.1773286 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2020.1773286

Published online: 16 Jun 2020.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ragn20 Sexualising the performance, objectifying profile the performer: The twerk dance in Kenya

Makau Kitata abstract Shifting arenas of dance performance and youths’ counterculture have brought the twerk to the internet, thus exposing it to the discourse of cultural imperialism, appropriation, and cultural resistance. This has changed the symbolism of the art form: from a performance meant for celebration, to a dance of sexual rage. The media associates the dance with bottom provocation, prostitution or celebrity achievement stories − rarely celebrating the intellect, aesthetics or the expression of freedom in it. From a western point of view, twerking is overly sexualised and the performers participants in a cultural notoriety – thus, objectifying it. However, in its original context it is primarily a dance for festive celebrations. As a form of artistic expression resisting cultural destruction in Kenya, twerk is a way of re-politicising the African female body, and decolonising it from the male, western influenced gaze. Sexual expression in it is therefore a dialogue, not simply an invitation to sex.

key words twerking, sexualising, objectifying, decolonising, counterculture

Introduction shakes her hips in bouncing, swaying move- ments resembling the Ugandan Bakisimba This article attempts to evaluate whether (Mabingo, 2019) and the Congolese mainstream public and media interpretation (Covington-Ward, 2014) dances. of the twerk dance is hurting the image of the Variants exist in the North, the United art form. It seeks to situate the twerk dance States (US) and Europe, and in the Carib- amongst , as a serious art bean, where a concentration of African des- fi form and diminish the identi cation of the cendants exists. Choreographers routinely African female dancer as an individual who put pelvic thrusts and grinds in the perform- suggestively and erotically displays her ance. These movements index a cultural cel- body merely for sex. ebration of joy rather than sexual Twerk as a dance performance involves provocation. As a term twerk entered the the twisting of the waist, which is common mainstream through the lyrics of Beyoncé’s, throughout Africa. The shaking of the Check on It (2009) and achieved its ubiqui- dancer’s buttocks is the most recognisable tous YouTube presence through Miley movement. In the Ivory Coast, the dance is Cyrus (Clevver Music, 2013). Shereen Zink called Mapouka, a traditional dance form (2016:15) observes that, “Ultimately, twerk- also known as “the dance of the behind” ing’s political context, and Cyrus’ lack of (White, 2016:258). In Kenya and Tanzania, regard for said context, suggest that she is its variant is the Chakacha (Franco, 2015), perpetuating harmful stereotypes about in which the dancer (usually a woman), black women while her own white privilege

Agenda 2020 ISSN 1013-0950 print/ISSN 2158-978X online © 2020 M. Kitata https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2020.1773286 pp. 1–11 allows her to maintain her integrity.” Twerk which shape Black women’s experiences has always been intrinsic to African and, in turn, are shaped by Black women” dancing expression, long before its contro- (Hill Collins, 2000:299). This approach versial global social media status. allows us to question the content of the truth about Black women’s twerk dance profile According to Michèle Alexandre (2015), expression and simultaneously challenge the term “twerking” is problematic because the roots and tools of Black Women profil- it conjures negative connotations to an old ing. As a Black woman dance performance, artistic body expression. In its original for- I adopt Elizabeth Pérez’s(2015:16) view: mulation, these dance moves used to be “Twerk should be understood properly as celebrated and understood as part of part of a family of Black Atlantic dances valued cultural heritage: “Unfortunately, that emerged from shared histories of dom- the appropriation of the word and failure to ination.” As an art form, it provides an inter- understand it as artistic expression con- sectional window for an assessment of the tinues the demonization of nonconforming ways in which black women re (act) in the bodies” (Alexandre, 2015:62). In this article world. Aria Halliday (2020:1) has argued I turn the focus back to the South to re- that: “Black girls’ use of twerking videos to assert an African and Black feminist cultural celebrate and challenge each other’s self- perspective (Hill Collins, 2000) in resisting expression provides an opportunity to the appropriation of twerk and the objectifi- enjoy their bodies and reclaim the possibili- cation of young African women’s bodies in ties of pleasure in blackness and girlhood/ Kenya. Patricia Hill Collins is a Black feminist womanhood.” who writes to the African Diaspora, while the indigenous postcolonial memory draws on According to Hanna (2010:213), “Dance colonial resistance and the postcolonial and sex both use the same instrument − African experience. Intersections exist namely, the human body − both involve between these standpoints in the global the language of the body’s orientation context of twerk as a dance. The approach I toward pleasure.” Due to this association, it use views the twerk dance in Kenya as a is challenging to separate dance and sex specific site of intersectionality where inter- even when sexual expression is unintended. secting oppressions of Black Kenyan The pleasure in dance could be erotic, com- women meet. Hill Collins (2000) in her munity celebration, ritual, sociopolitical study of Black women reveals how sexuality storytelling or even art for art’s sake. “Sexu- constitutes one important site where hetero- ality also featured prominently in many parts sexism, class, race, nation, and gender as of Africa as an expression of reconciliation systems of oppression converge. Histori- and peace building” (Tamale, 2004:3). In cally, ceding control over self-definitions of dance, sexual expression can be enacted Black women’s dance expressions has overtly and subtly through dance meta- upheld multiple oppressions. From slavery phors, idioms, and signifiers linking the per- to colonialism, to the postcolony, these formance to broader sociopolitical systems have relied on stigmatising Black discourses. With political, religious and women’s eroticism. This has been used as media reification of bodies in pleasure per- a justification for various forms of oppres- formance, it is easy to miss its many meta- sion built around the sexualising of Black phorical transfigurations. women’s performance. Western influenced interlocutors fre- As a cultural South response, a self- quently equate the erotic movements with defined Black women’s dance perception sex performance. White (2008:1) argues: can become an important place of resist- “Communicative orientations of interlocu- ance. The perception of the twerk dance per- tors … are conditioned by social and cultural formance as erotic is important for commitments about social solidarity.” In domination of Black women who perform twerk, the western eye is directing attention it. Conversely, reclaiming and self-defining to the interplay of social fears and the the eroticism constitutes one path toward expression of otherness in shaping the Black women’s empowerment. The twerk meaning of the dance as a communicative dance in “Black feminist epistemology” is encounter. Additionally, conservative Chris- thus seen here as: “A site of mutually con- tian – colonial edicts regulating African structing features of social organization, female body expression expect that dance

2 AGENDA 2020 should be chaste. Tamale’s(2004:3) study print media negotiates taboo subjects in profile ‘Women’s sexuality as a site of control and serious discourse; while Tom Odhiambo resistance’ notes: “Western imperialist cari- (2008) and George Ogola (2005) observe catures of African sexuality, was part of a that the media is a form of popular opposi- wider plot to colonize and exploit the ‘black tion to oppressive power in Kenya. This race’.” This involved the trivialising of folk article sees the twerk dance in Kenya as a reality that dance is a language expressing de-colonial feminist countercultural per- human experience beyond mere sex. formance form, whose representation by media is shaping the discourse about body In Kenya, consistent mainstream media expression. and internet focus on sexually objectifying music videos with women twerking might prompt a gaze pattern. This shifts the gaze of the audience to an objectification of the Nationalism, ethnicity and the dancer. It pushes the dance discourse to twerk in Kenya off-stage behaviour. The ignorant intrusive Since the 19th century, dances and music male gaze (Van Eck, 2016) creates the have merged as symbols of ethnicity and ambivalence towards twerk. national identity, forming the first objectifi- Post-colonial knowledge production, cation of dance as national culture. People acquired, organised and interpreted by the accept association with a dance shaped colonised, has pointed to how colonialism identity as popular cultural ethos. However, created the mental image of an over-sexua- Karin Barber (1987) notes the equivocation lised black woman who needed civilizing of the term popular culture in Africa where fi (Prasad, 2005). The erotic-exotic other, is the new elite are de ned by their proximity part of western hegemonic patriarchal rep- to westernisation, while still bound up with resentation of the African female body. The the local which they recoil from. Lynda supposedly provocative dance of black Spencer et al (2018:9) observe that, there is women has evolved into the negative a dispute around the meaning of popular labels of the dancer. It is justification for cul- culture within the dominant popular imagin- “ tural imperialism. ary: This contestation in itself gestures towards popular culture’s inclination for However, the ethnomethodology dis- ambiguity and slipperiness.” The African course’s focus on how people make sense sociocultural gaze (even by African elite) on of the world in everyday interactions the intended body-positive dance is lacking. (Maynard, 1982) views dance as a language Dominant groups might perpetuate alien shaped by social contexts. In twerk, a chor- norms that recolonise African culture. Hill eographer could use different media to Collins sees the contemporary middle-class create the dance while audiences could use Black women as a special group which has different inclinations to interpret it. Hanna’s a choice in this cultural debate: “Will they (2010:21) use of heterotopia theory continue to value Black solidarity with their (Malborg, 2016) to research dance and sexu- working-class sisters … Or will they see ality within ‘other’ cultural spaces, addresses their newly acquired positions as theirs the “conflation of sexual expression and alone and thus perpetuate working-class promiscuity of gender and sexuality, of Black women’s subordination?” (2000:67) nudity and sexuality, and of dancer intention The twerk dance is performed outside and audience interpretation”, thus allowing the spaces the society elite consider formal us to perceive dance performance in more or desirable. These spaces where twerk is complex ways beyond sex. performed are subalternised and racialised. In a postmodern Kenya, social media has It is therefore a dance of ‘the people’ − also helped to create platforms for popular associated with female agency. As a cultural culture and new forms of representation text, twerk affords participants the opportu- and self-representation extending to a nity to experience communal solidarity and dance counterculture, resulting in “ … an positive self-esteem. It embodies African assertive form of literacy that has given history, culture, body geography and world agency to categories that previously did view, within a postnation postcolonial cul- not have an outlet” (Ligaga, 2016:111). tural context. Its performance deliberately Grace Musila (2007) reveals that Kenyan recovers meaning silenced by the pressure

Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer 3 of neo-colonialism. Denzin et al (2008:13), the Indian context, the devadasi identity discussing the recovery of indigenous transfigured from 19th century “temple pros- memory and cultural practices, speak of titute” to the 20th century emblem of the “dancing the body as a decolonized nation (Meduri, 2008). The Moroccan education”. Shikhat dancers are admired but their profile Kenya’s colonial administration con- dance language known as belly dancers in sidered dance as a threat to the colonial the west is seen as dishonorably shameful regime − sometimes, enforcing bans. As a to their families (Philaretou, 2006). The collective performance, dance could be a meaning is thus a critical factor arising genuine threat as empowerment resistance from the context. Colonial attitudes recon- in an oppressed society. Susan Reed, citing structed, sexualised and renamed a graceful Comaroff (1998:503), notes: “The suppres- African dance expression calling it illegal sion, prohibition and regulation of indigen- and sinful. This repositioned the dance ous dances under colonial rule is an index from the festivals of celebration to the less of the significance of dance as a site of con- public arenas of social mobilisation. ’ siderable political and moral anxiety.” Women s bodies represented cultural and later racial boundaries: “White women’s ̃ı̃ ’ ’ Ngug wa Thiong o s twerk dance morality is dependent on black women’s expression in A Grain of Wheat on the eve decadence in European public discourse” ’ of Kenya s independence documents the (Thompson, 2012:125). sense of communal power at the village square. “The girls danced in the middle, Colonial attitudes on racial identity thrusting out their buttocks provokingly, meant a lack of gendered protection of knowing that the men in corners were black artistic body expression, which even- watching” (1967:189). Women played a key tually led to the exclusion of black women role in the fight for freedom of Kenya. from the mainstream dance arena. Observed Through dace, they performed the female from the fringes, black women’s reputation body in a political context. The dancing hinges on how they dance. By expressing women were participating in a discourse of herself through her body, the African liberation. In the novel, the evening dance woman − from an excluded position − influ- meetings between couples in Kinenie forest ences the dance on the wrong side of the is a recurrent motif signalling dance as a ethical law. Historian, Katrina Dyonne space for anticolonial subversions. From Thompson further observes: the outlines, the dances could pass for court- ing sessions; on the contrary they were ses- The vibrant, polyrhythmic dance move- sions of political sensitisation. Ogude and ments of the lower body among black Nyairo (2007:1) write: “popular cultural and females were the main characteristic narrative forms are particularly excellent interpreted by Europeans as lascivious sites for understanding complex issues of and inviting to white men. Travelers’ power, especially in authoritarian societies accounts often mentioned the bending of where many people lack access to forums the knees, protruding buttocks, pelvic of political debate.” In the novel, the charac- contractions, and snakelike movements ters, Kihika and Wambuku, manage to move as examples of the lewd nature of these away into the woods, from the other dances (2012:17) (Emphasis mine). dancers. A promise of a stolen erotic session becomes an opportunity for Kihika European travellers, missionaries and later to explain to her the importance of indepen- colonists’ mind-set and sexual interpretation dence (wa Thiong’o, 1967). of African female dance still persists. It ignores seeing the dance as a possible com- From the novel’s sociopolitical context, memoration of harvest, religious celebra- women’s dancing is an act of accomplice tion, coming of age ritual, sexual flirtations and a rite of passage in craving for self between ages and even war. The sustained rule. In engaging in night dances, the cultural blindness and moralising western women were fighting colonialism with a attitude is a metaphor of colonial desire, a woman’s strength. The contest about sexu- projection of the lascivious exploiter. ality, womanhood and nation intersects in the dance as an image whose explanation After Kenya’s independence, some is determined by the interpreter’s gaze. In dances were overlooked for sociopolitical

4 AGENDA 2020 reasons inherited from colonialism. They suppress sexual expression through dance. profile were never put on formal stages but The regulating also reflects the role of the remain in rural communities and the lower- Kenyan cultural elite who imbibe and income urban populations. In an attempt to sustain colonial attitudes towards female create a new , dances body expression. derived from regional tribal contexts were The participants, especially the girls, elevated without acknowledging a new- however engage in non-competitive per- fangled multi-ethnic ethos. Andrea Deagon, formance of twerk dance away from the (2008) notes that far from creating a national stage as a way of challenging imposed sense of belonging, these efforts simply social identities − questioning the authen- reinforce divisive ethnic identities rather ticity of the traditionalist attitudes to dance than espouse a community-based folk sensi- as an aberrant art form. The performance bility. In Kenyan youth culture, the twerk is acts as an expression of Black women con- an instance of de-ethnicised dance sciousness: “Resisting by doing something performance. that is not expected”, could not have The state participates in the promotion of occurred without Black women’s long-stand- national dance through the Kenya National ing rejection of mammies, matriarchs, and Drama Festival (KNDF), the Kenya Music other controlling images” (Hill Collins, Festivals and the media. The nation appro- 2002:97). In twerk performance, the girls priates rural peasant or urban lower-class are fighting for visibility in a society that dances as indicators of national cultural has identified with constraining media cul- identity. Students compete showcasing tures which deny young women the oppor- community dances on the formal stage. tunity to perform a genuine adolescent While the festivals are meant to be embodi- sensibility. Ligaga notes how “Our tra- ments of cultural pluralism, their competi- ditions,” were celebrated as sources of tive nature promotes dominance of one national pride and were dramatised ethnic group over others. “The dancers and through broadcast and print media … ”Yet their valorised ethnic-nation dance become the contradictions of the Kenyan nation the idealised cultural emblems of the emerged through very specific cracks” national authentic pre-colonial past, tribal (2016:111). and colourful.” (Trienekens, 2002:281). Dance is one of these crevices through which a post-nation ethos is finding The festivals require that dance perform- expression. It is no longer feasible to ance directors reconceptualise, domesticate enforce uniform ethnic dance movements, and tame potentially sex-expressive especially in the intensely multination elements. The adjudication process serves youth . The Kenyan socio- to vet overtly, and subtly castigate sexual political outlook is built on ethnic motivated messaging. Kenya Film Classification Board social identities. But these have given birth (KFCB) sets the theme of the festivals. to new inventive choreography from youth Rather than encourage a talent promotion who are not bound by imposed identities, or sociopolitical artistic theme, the regulator, hence the twerk. Outside the stage, it rep- chooses a moral theme − Clean Content − resents the muted, excluded and misrepre- “The board intends to use drama and film sented truth about female dance to inculcate moral values … among other expressions. It is a sign of conflict between things” (Anthony Njagi, ‘KFCB signs five- the adolescents and a defensive culture. year sponsorship deal with drama festival The twerking girls are recreating a popular officials’, Life & Style, 21 July 2018, Daily counterculture − claiming agency in a situ- Nation). The adjudicator’s marking scheme ation where self-definition is suppressed. for Cultural Creative Dance stipulates: “Whereas costuming may be appropriate, relevant and effective, it must observe the rules of decency required by the social Twerk and the internet in Kenya decorum” (Too, 2019: n.p. Emphasis mine). Thefemalebodyasasiteforartistic This regulating process undermines the expression is highly regulated in Kenya. authenticity of dance performance by using Kenya’s public discourse has a characteristic an elitist school calendar intervention to fear of woman, the body and passions

Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer 5 borrowed directly from Biblical narratives. The because the internet has introduced an asser- femme fatale motif associated with perform- tive performance presence that has accorded ing erotic female sexuality is a common way women agency, which meets their stifled of interpreting the “tragic” (Ward, 1945) needs for expression in a democratic society. story of John the Baptist (New Testament, Twerk is an artistic female dance expression profile Mark 6:17–29). Adaptations in modern litera- ever present; seeking for an outlet. In the inter- ture demonstrate an enduring negative per- net space it participates in expanded public ception of women’s dance body expression. discourses and also attracts controversy. Flaubert’s(1913)story,Herodia and Oscar In a study on women’s agency on social Wilde’s(1908/1967) play Salome, are inspired platforms through self-representation, Ligaga by the woman thought to be Herodias’ daugh- (2016) notes that we should be cautious ter, who danced for Herod, her step father, while celebrating popular culture because it leadingtoJohntheBaptist’s beheading. Gov- sometimes colludes with power. The school ernment authorities in Kenya have appro- girls performing twerk dance on the edges of priated this sexualised and stereotyped drama and music festivals get their amateur perception of the female dance performer. videos posted on the internet. However, However, the internet is an alternative outlet online platforms display the girls as out of for suppressed dance performance needs of the ordinary, desirable, and scandalous. The Kenyan youth. Outside official platforms, online window, though a convenient space “The entry of the Internet has been crucial in for expressing censored or muted individual disrupting this highly policed public space” or group twerk dance expressions, also (Ligaga, 2016:112). Though the twerk has becomes problematic as the performers have been alive in Kenya’spublicperformance little control on the design of the platforms or spaces, it has achieved a contentious quality the responses their performance draws. due to its presence on social media platforms. In this section I discuss the internet as a site of The visuals serve to create spectacle. popular culture and audience interaction YouTube videos of high school girls’ twerk- about women’s dancing in Kenya. I highlight ing off-stage during the Kenya music festival the tensions between the freedoms created centre on the buttocks, the waist; pelvic and by the platform for popular culture and post- leg parting movements (Hot News Kenya, nation control, and intersections of twerk as 2017). The commentary is: OMG; teachers a cultural identity of girl performers with con- abdicated parental responsibility. Parenting sumerist tendencies that profitfromits and education aspirations in a changing commoditisation. society are ironically made possible by the dance which now acts as a sounding board KFCB’spolicingofpublicmoralityinthe disguised as a discourse on morality. On media controls female dance expressions con- the other hand, Loreto Limuru Girls School sidered aberrant for public consumption. It Bazokizo dance (Tasmah Online Business, described Akothee, a Kenyan musician/ 2017) received positive endorsements, as dancer, as: “talented but filthy” (Ebru TV the place for girls to learn while having fun. Kenya, 2019). Instead of recognising value in The video frame uses a school logo, a girl the talent − how meaning is transmitted in scout uniform and military style leg through dance movement, the censor chose thumping. It is an advertising strategy. In to concentrate on the costume. The dance this case, twerk (or its absence) is appro- was treated as a decorative feature. The priated in a mercantile venture, masked as censor demanded that the woman correct a call for better education and morality. her appearance to conform to the “norms of feminine appearance” (Saul, 2003:144). The This underlies the formal conservative performer used the internet to assert her nature of public endorsement. The represen- agency and dared the KFCB to arrest her tation is not motivated by the need to portray (BTG News, 2019). Internet ’s involvement women’s dance positively, but by a profit with women’s dance expression has pro- motive. The use of a public relations duced ambivalence: the talent and sexiness company in the counter dance video of women, manipulates men. KFCB’s indexes the commercial appropriation of response suggests attempts to save women the twerk dance. Notwithstanding the nega- and men from the dance itself. This is tive interpretation of the dance form, the

6 AGENDA 2020 online viewership is unfailing. Good for owning them to their advantage” (Mose, profile business discourse - bizcourse. The distrust- 2013:116). It reveals the masking potential ful reception on digital media is chiefly of the words as double opposing indexing because the twerk videos do not attempt to in an antagonistic urban culture. First, in conform to sanctioned aesthetic-ethical sen- Kenya, trashing sexual expression in dance sibilities. They concentrate on highlighting has become a mark of high class. On the the dance as prohibited. This has bred a other hand, using the same language of the battle of perceptions. Through stigmatised detractor to talk about the dance is a way views, society could be complicit in creating of asserting its relevance in speaking back and supporting deviance. The dancers inter- to constraining power. The discourse of nalise the label and act accordingly. If twerk negative eroticism is subverted to a desired is eroticised, reified and distasteful, dance subaltern heroism. Ogude and Nyairo to the tune − literally. (2007) call this ‘bravado’ - characteristic defiant assertive resistance of Kenyan artis- A YouTube video of Kenyatta University tic culture. Despite the negative media Cultural Week performance (Kiteme, 2015), mediation, ironically generated by a liberat- shows male and female dancers doing the ing impulse from access to the internet, a twerk on an outdoor stage with the audience dispute about proper dance continues. urging them on. The online comments range Nonetheless, twerk meets the expression from assertions that there is nothing needs of performers and online participants ‘ratchet’ about the dance, to a post claiming: in their quest to tell stories, either through “Black women worldwide act ratchet”.In mock scandal, or, in-group conversations. Black counterculture, ratchetness considers the limitations of representation of Black respectable versus nonrespectable behav- iour (Glover and Glover, 2019). As a counter- Societal ambivalence on twerk in cultural strategy, it aims to recuperate the Kenya’s socialite culture derogatory term ‘ratchet’. As a performative Kenya’s socialite culture has appropriated strategy that Black women deploy, ratchet dance into the cyberspace with sexualised secures liberatory space for the performers and objectifying consequences. The (Glover and Glover, 2019). In Southern woman socialite identity has negative con- Black diaspora politics of resistance, ratchet notations, especially in a country as conser- is a geopolitical erotic vernacular for a coun- vative as Kenya. While aware of the terculture of modernity. The youth in Kenya negative arguments made against them, are deploying ratchetness as an opportunity Ligaga (2016) notes that their visibility to explore how ratchet performance in a uni- through self-representation can have a versity calendar event can secure them an meaningful contribution to a discussion on expressive liberatory space in institutional agency and gender. She refers to the dance economies; just like the diaspora Kenyan socialite, Vera Sidika, as a “neolib- Black women exploit it to gain space in eral subject”. Sidika is doing business sexual politics. As the dance expression using her body within a post-feminist thrives in controversial contexts, the suppor- culture which sees the sexy body as the ulti- ters and detractors equally contribute to a mate mark of feminine identity. Through the growing discourse in equal measure. Bettina twerk, she could be cashing in on a neolib- Love (2017) has demonstrated how “the eral world view which does not consider ero- ratchet lens” has been used to characterise ticism as an ethical impediment in a Black queer youth agency and Black hip-hop consumer culture. Her twerk dance perform- cultural expression. The dance discourse ance, actually denies sex. It becomes a sym- rises beyond morality policing, to a metaphor bolic expression which could even include of contested socio-political meanings, and a romance, desire or social mobility towards social text embodying inter-group relations. a desired female actualisation − like econ- As Achille Mbembe (2006) observes, omic independence or physical fitness. As turning an idea into a visible code tran- a performed art form, Pérez, (2015:1) scribes it into a figure of speech. With acknowledges the participatory role of the twerk in Kenya, “The country has gone dance in women empowerment: “Twerk ‘ghetto’ and ‘slum’. youth, have also shares various morphological and the- deconstructed the pejorative words, matic similarities with Caribbean and Latin

Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer 7 American movement traditions promoting signal the desirable and beautiful, giving female sexual, economic, and political the dance an alibi for art. Online comments freedom.” The twerk is appropriated and show a popular endorsement for the given an alibi outside the narrow sexual dancer as the role model for sexy femininity seduction objective. Cultural theorist (Travelpost, 2019). From the socialite’s neo- profile Roland Barthes (1983) refutes the common liberal position, twerk is a money and fame prejudice accorded the dance accompanying dance. However this attitude, borrowed the striptease as an erotic element. On the from Black rap music has its ambiguities: contrary, the dance probably gets rid of the While it is seen as a creative response to possibility. racism by Black urban youth (Walcott, 1997), images of Black women as sexually While the body is viewed as a woman’s available hoochies have persisted in Black source of power, it is constantly under music videos. This attitude treats the black pressure for self-surveillance; monitoring woman dancer as some kind of a freak. As and discipline (Elbert, 2004). In dance it “freaks” (Hill Collins, 2000:85), “U.S. Black becomes subject to media sexualisation, women can now be seen ‘poppin that consumerism and commodification of differ- coochie’” − another offensive term describ- ence. Aisha Durham (2012) writing on ing butt shaking, this time by 2 PAC Live Beyoncé, ‘Southern booty’, and Black femi- Crew (Marihuampiro, 2012: n.p.) − in global ninities in music video, notes that though context. Beyoncé is a hip-hop music icon, “She is known more for her voluptuous body than Twerk dance is a women’s performance; her body of work that crisscrosses multiple occasionally men join in dancing along. culture industries.” This underlines a global Kenya’s music performance on social interest in the Black Woman body in public media shows males manipulating their performance spaces. The body (especially crotch and grinding behind the female the booty) becomes a site of multiple inter- dancers. The women are portrayed as cele- secting cultural discourses. brating their shame. This plays into the his- torical legacy of the triad of pornography, In Kenya, the media commodified differ- prostitution, and the institutionalised rape ence of the woman’s body in dance perform- of Black women (Bart and Moran, 1993). It ance is the buttocks. In a study intended to puts the dance within a larger cultural establish why men are captivated by the socio-political context that has internalised arched back of a woman, Pazhoohi et al the controlling images applied to Black (2017:158), notes: “The perception of attrac- women. This treatment of the dancing tiveness and visual attention to the hip woman as a participant in pornography has region suggests that lordosis or the arching strong ties to the portrayal of Black women of the back might signal human females’ as animals. In pornography women proceptivity or willingness to be courted.” become non-people. It reduces the dancer The media in Kenya has amplified this cul- to her reproductive system, open, willing, tural awareness (‘Bum-per harvest: Why and available − not in control (McNall, Kenyan men are obsessed with big 1983). When grounded on historical behinds’, Standard Digital News, 2016).1 As Western debasement of Black women, this a result, the media influenced Kenyan male link between dance and pornography imagination favours the sharply protruding becomes feasible. The men in the dance buttocks against a tiny waist: an exaggerated might believe they are simply participants sign of the fertile-feminine look sometimes in a culture that condones exhibition of sexu- enhanced by plastic surgery. This is cap- ally coded masculinity. However, their posi- tured in Kenyan Poets Lounge P Unit’s tioning in the dance exposes their song video, You Guy (2012), whose theme culpability in fostering Black women’s objec- is nyemerearing (desiring) and Prezzo’s My tification as pornographic objects. Unfortu- Gal (SnookBase.com TV, 2014). The video, nately, it also reinforces a Western Vera Sidika in Ebeano by KCEE, SkiiBii & stereotype of the Black man as a rapist. Harry Song (Africurves, 2015) and Tanza- nia’s Harmonize X Rich Mavoko, Show Me The women could as well be reasserting (2017), idolise the persona of Vera Sidika’s their pride and snobbery. However, Stepha- bigger twerking booty. These popular nie Davis (2018:2) studying the behaviour artists use the socialite’s twerking image to of college students on Instagram observes

8 AGENDA 2020 that, while performing agency, the women and control – best played in a dance as profile could also be engaging in self-objectifica- controversial as the twerk. Interpreting tion: “Social media platforms can serve as the dance requires sensitivity to public potential sites for resistance and indepen- culture in a decolonised feminist context. dence, but can still reify the objectification Appreciating how the environment pro- and sexualization of women online.” The vides meaning to twerk dance − as embo- coupling with men in the rear position died resistance to the girls and women reinforces the dissonance between the whodoit,anditspresenceinthemedia dancers’ intention versus audience interpret- − is a means of re (membering) back- ation. Media focus on this coupling conflates ground, recording it, and responding to sexual expression with promiscuity. As the culture. twerk performance presents nuanced sym- bolic ways of embodying sexuality, the audi- ences’ enduring consciousness sacrifices Note complexity to penetration sex. A homoerotic 1. See www.sde.co.ke/pulse/article/2000216281/bum- male gaze denies the expression of an auto- per-harvest-why-kenyan-men-are-obsessed-with- erotic female sexuality. Though the dance big-behinds, accessed 27 Mar. 2020. videos ostensibly accord agency to the female body, their combination with an overt exotic buttock, in money making References space, and the simulated rear entry male Africurves (2015) ‘Vera Sidika in Ebaeno’, YouTube,11 positioning on the dancing Black woman, Nov., viewed at: www.youtube.com/watch?v= helps to make the subjects the erotic- 56edhX_3W2w, accessed 17 Mar. 2020 exotic, the ‘other’. Alexandre M (2015) Sexploitation, Sexual Profiling and the Illusion of Gender, New York, NY: Routledge. Barber K (1987) ‘Who Is the populist? Response’,in Conclusion: Dance as metaphor African Studies Review, 30, 3, 105–111, doi:10. 2307/524543 versus the pervasiveness of the Bart P & Moran E G (1993) Violence Against Women: erotic motif The Bloody Footprints, Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage. Colonial Kenya’s European standards con- Barthes R (1983) ‘Striptease’ in R Copeland & M Cohen sidered African women’s dancing as border- (Eds.) What is Dance? Oxford: Oxford University ing on immorality, a point of focus for Press. missionary activity on the education of the Beyoncé (2009) Check On It (Video) Ft. Bun B, Slim ’ Thug, YouTube, 3 Oct. Viewed at: www.youtube. African women s body expression. Contro- com/watch?v=Q1dUDzBdnmI, accessed 8 Mar. versy on the twerk can be viewed as a resul- 2020. tant cultural dispute. The sexual motif in the BTG News (2019) “‘Kuja unishike” Akothee finally performance tends to overlay the dancer’s responds to Ezekiel Mutua’s message to her’, expression due to the interlocutor’s eroti- YouTube, 20 Feb., viewed at: www.youtube. cised gaze and failure to contextualise the com/watch?v=w86hXDTQkl0, accessed 16 March 2020. language of the art form. Clevver Music (2013) ‘Miley twerks on Santa Jingle New media in Kenya mediates the rep- Ball 2013 Video!’, YouTube, 9 Dec., viewed at: resentation of dance in a broader discursive www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i1seEjIUXI, arena evaluating the female body’simages accessed 16 March 2020. Covington-Ward Y (2014) ‘ Book review: Roberts, Allen of self-power, agency and identity. It has F.: A Dance of Assassins. Performing Early decentralised meaning-making authority Colonial Hegemony in the Congo’,inAnthropos, towards cultural phenomena and the dis- 109, 2, 737–738, doi:10.5771/0257-9774-2014-2- course about a decolonised feminist perform- 737 ‘ fi ance. Understanding this dance requires a Davis S E (2018) Objecti cation, sexualization, and fi ’ − misrepresentation: Social media and the college self-de ned Black women s standpoint a experience’,inSocial Media + Society,4,3,doi: willingness to embrace a Black feminist epis- 10.1177/2056305118786727 temology aware of intersectional systems of Deagon A (2008) ‘Folk dance and ethnic identity’,in race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, Dance Chronicle, 31, 2, 275–278, doi: 10.1080/ and nation (Hill Collins, 2000). 01472520802118509 Denzin N K, Lincoln Y S & Smith L T (2008) Handbook The agentive nature of dance has of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, Los oftenlinkedittonotionsofresistance Angeles: Sage.

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MAKAU KITATA (PhD) is a lecturer in the Department of Literature, Uni- versity of Nairobi, Kenya. He has recently published an article ‘The proble- matics of naming in Kenyan creative narratives’ in the journal Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies. Email: [email protected]

Sexualising the performance, objectifying the performer 11