NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Theatre in Circulation: Performing
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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Theatre in Circulation: Performing National Identity on the Global Stage in Cape Verde, West Africa A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS For the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Theatre and Drama By Christina S. McMahon EVANSTON, ILLINOIS June 2008 2 © Copyright by Christina S. McMahon 2008 All Rights Reserved 3 ABSTRACT Theatre in Circulation: Performing National Identity on the Global Stage in Cape Verde, West Africa Christina S. McMahon This study examines how Cape Verdean theatre artists construct transformative performances of race, gender, language, and colonial history at the Mindelact International Theatre Festival on the Cape Verde Islands. The aim is to understand how international theatre festivals participate in the production and shaping of new social imaginaries about nationhood. Drawing on my sustained ethnographic work with Cape Verdean performers and archival research into the festival’s media coverage, I analyze three trends that featured prominently at Mindelact from 2004-06: dramatizations of oral histories about colonial-era rebellions and drought, theatre and dance performances foregrounding Cape Verdean women’s labor and sexuality, and adaptations of Western plays. I argue that when Cape Verdean artists circulate this theatre to a festival context, they rewrite central narratives about their country’s national identity. By analyzing how festivals operate as mechanisms of circulation, I expand globalization theories that reassess how cultural production functions in an age dominated by increased circulation of people and finance. The Mindelact Festival is a crossroads for Lusophone (Portuguese-language) theatre from Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Drawing on the islands’ complex history with Portuguese colonialism, I demonstrate how a festival venue privileging Lusophone theatre is a productive site for performers to interrogate colonialism’s legacies of historical bias, restrictive gender roles, and regional formulations of racial identities and linguistic hierarchies. 4 Cape Verde’s creolized society is a product of centuries of African and European peoples and traditions intermingling on the islands. I analyze how theatre artists strategically perform facets of this Creole identity at Mindelact in order to situate their islands’ local culture within Cape Verde’s still emerging national identity. To examine the impact of circulation on these performances, I situate theatre productions within the material and social conditions enabling their circulation to the festival: media discourses, funding, rehearsal tactics, performance training, and audience expectations. I maintain that the convergence of these factors in a festival arena allows locally devised Cape Verdean theatre to become incorporated into a national dramatic canon that helps shape public perception of the islands’ national identity. 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Behind this dissertation are a multitude of individual voices and institutions in Cape Verde, Portugal, and the U.S., all of whom deserve more thanks than I can offer here. In Cape Verde, numerous performers, directors, writers, and cultural specialists generously gave of their time in interviews and opened up their rehearsals to me during my nearly 18 months of fieldwork. In Mindelo, the Baltasar Lopes cultural center became my home during summers 2004 and 2005. For this, I am grateful to choreographer Toni Tavares, whose generous spirit inspired me everyday I spent among him and his collaborators in Fou-nana Projectos, which granted me an artistic residence at the center. In particular, Tambla and Josina Fortes became both friends and professional consultants: Tambla as my Mindelact videographer and Josina in her capacity as director of the Mindelo Cultural Center. Of the numerous Mindelo theatre artists who became invaluable collaborators on this study, I would especially like to thank Elmidou Lopes, Paulo Miranda, Neu Lopes, Elisabete Gonçalves, Zenaida Alfama, Mirtô and Mirita Veríssimo, Milanka Vera-Cruz, Luci Mota, and Herlandson (“Kutsch”) Duarte. As overseer of the Mindelact Documentation Center, Sílvia Lima helped with my archival work and became a spectacular friend to boot. Érika Ramos and Josy Rocha doubled as exceptional research assistants and close confidantes. Sílvia, Érika, e Josy: b’zot é nhas irmãs de coraçon! My thanks to Valódia Monteiro for Portuguese classes and in- depth conversations on Cape Verdean culture, Dr. Moacyr Rodrigues for walking tours of Mindelo and lessons about the city’s social history, and Dr. Ana Cordeiro for taking time to discuss the Mindelo Cultural Center (Instituto Camões) with me. As President of the Mindelact Association, João Branco deserves special thanks for enthusiastically supporting my research from the very beginning, facilitating contacts and granting me access to all theatre festival 6 events. João also earned my admiration for his near miraculous powers of data collection. The Mindelact Documentation Center, which proved indispensable to this study, is the fruit of over a decade of his own research into Cape Verdean theatre history. In Praia and the rural areas of Santiago Island, my other homes in Cape Verde, among the artists who provided precious guidance are Mano Pretu, Bety Fernandes, Mário Lúcio, Paulo Silva, Sabino Baessa, Narciso Freire, Claudio Correia, Armando Veiga, Matilde Dias, José Bettencourt, Wilton Alexandre, Princesito, and Célia (“Fuka”) Varela. Jeff Hessney read chapter drafts and provided copious feedback, all of it helpful. César Schofield and João Paulo Brito invited me into their artistic collaboration for “Praia.mov 2007,” for which I am thankful. Micaela Barbosa was both friend and colleague, and I eagerly await her thesis on Cape Verdean drama. In Praia, my fieldwork felicitously overlapped with that of Kesha Fikes. Kesha, your influence is hard to miss in this dissertation. Your friendship kept me anchored, and your example made me a better scholar. I am grateful to Tania Oliveira and Crisálida (“Totinha”) Correia, friends who reminded me to stop working and have fun once in awhile. Luisa Veiga became both dear friend and valuable contact at the American Embassy. I thank everyone at the Embassy in Praia for support they provided during 2006-2007. Special thanks to Deanna Reese, the “patron saint” of my research in Praia. She and her husband Zé Fernandes welcomed me into their home, listened to my stories from the field, and brightened my days with their beautiful daughter Leila. Cape Verdean theatre artists who also deserve special mention here are José Domingos from Brava Island, Jorge Martins from Santo Antão, Ney Tavares from Maio, and Victor Silva and Francisco Cruz from Sal. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have had three sets of adoptive Cape Verdean parents: Camilo and Edna Gonçalves, Joanita and José Pedro Venícula, 7 and Maria João and Sr. Isodoro. Thank you for opening your homes to me. I am so proud to be your American “daughter.” Victor Sancha was my host and sounding board during many of my stays on Sal. In Portugal, I am particularly grateful to Dr. Francisco Fragoso, Rui Duarte, Odete Môsso, and Nuno Custódio for their time and patience during myriad interviews. From Northwestern University, the crux of my academic community in the U.S., I need to begin by thanking my advisor, Dr. Sandra L. Richards, who deftly provided feedback through all of my writing stages and patiently responded to countless panic emails over the years, many of them coming from across an ocean. Dr. Richards, you have changed the way I think about culture, identity, memory, and so many other things, and for this I will always be grateful. My other committee members shared so much wisdom over the years, and I only hope that enough of it seeped into this thesis. Dr. Margaret Drewal trained me to think about performance as a process rather than a product and to grapple continuously with the ethics of doing ethnography in Africa. Dr. Brian Edwards taught me new ways of thinking about culture and globalization. His own valuable work in this area constantly inspires me to work harder and smarter. Dr. Ellen Sapega’s endless founts of knowledge about Lusophone topics kept this project on course. I cannot thank her enough for the independent study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, her help navigating Lisbon’s Biblioteca Nacional, and her visit during my fieldwork year in Cape Verde. My appreciation extends to Dr. Tracy C. Davis, a program chair with a truly magical touch for forming new theatre scholars, and Dr. Ana Puga, who became both friend and mentor at Northwestern. I am grateful to members of the 2007-2008 NU theatre and performance studies dissertation writing group: Daniel Smith, Lori Baptista, Jennifer Tyburczy, Chris Van Houten, Tamara Roberts, Jisoo Chung, and Mei Hsieh. Thanks to all of you for helping me clarify chapter arguments and hammer out the elusive “so what?” Ann Folino-White and Emily 8 Sahakian know my research as well as their own. Without their guidance, cheerleading, and advice, this thesis could not exist. Among the other Northwestern peers whose brilliance has informed my scholarly development are Stefka Mihaylova, Jesse Njus, Kimberly Korol, Praise Zenenga, and Kathryn de Luna. Thanks also to Eunice Ferreira, a kindred spirit also researching Cape Verdean theatre, for many shared insights, a fruitful professional bond, and amizade. My sincere thanks for research grants from Fulbright-Hays, the American Society for Theatre Research, and Northwestern’s Graduate School, Program of African Studies, Center for International and Comparative Studies, and Kaplan Center for the Humanities, all of which made my fieldwork in Cape Verde and Portugal possible. Northwestern’s theatre department, especially the indefatigable Liz Luby, provided a truly nurturing academic home for me. I owe my deepest gratitude to my remarkable family, whose unwavering love and support buoyed me through many obstacles and moments of self-doubt. Anne-Marie and Becky, you are more than sisters whom I admire and adore, you are confidantes who bring out my best self. Our friendship is the real thing: joyful, resilient, and unconditional.