I BELONGING WHILE BLACK

BELONGING WHILE BLACK: A CHOREOGRAPHY OF IMAGINED SILENCE IN EARLY MODERN AFRICAN DIASPORIC DANCE by Esther J. Terry Bachelor of Arts, University of Richmond, 2003 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2011 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Esther J. Terry It was defended on September 26, 2016 and approved by Dr. Neil Doshi, Department of French & Italian Languages and Literatures Dr. Kathleen George, Department of Theatre Arts Dr. Michelle Granshaw, Department of Theatre Arts Dissertation Chair: Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta, Department of Theatre Arts ii Copyright © by Esther J. Terry 2016 iii BELONGING WHILE BLACK: A CHOREOGRAPHY OF IMAGINED SILENCE IN EARLY MODERN AFRICAN DIASPORIC DANCE Esther J. Terry, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 In this dissertation, I examine specifically how and why historical narratives of African American theatre begin with minstrelsy and Jim Crow’s dancing body. Working with the process of historical production from Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past, I trace the related emergence of an imagined and Europeanist dancing body alongside the imagined and Black dancing body. I use imagined, following Susan Leigh Foster, because written sources and historical narratives do not facilitate physical or corporeal access. In Early Modern archives, I reveal how European dance masters and philosophers elevated court dancing and noble decorum into the imagined and ideal human. The imagined Europeanist and noble dancing body became the principal historiographic human figure in legitimated dance histories. Concurrently, I show how European travel writing negated imagined Black dancing bodies as inhuman, savage and bestial bodies, disqualifying them as imagined dancing bodies for inclusion in historical narratives. Thus, when scholars go to archived sources, with choreographed ballet and imagined Europeanist dancing bodies as the legitimated carriers of dance history, Thomas Dartmouth Rice and early minstrel performers emerge as the first qualified and documented dancing bodies moving through sub-Saharan repertoires. By further recuperating seventeenth- century, European-language sources on leaping and mock combat, I question the exclusion of airborne and martial repertoires from historical narratives of Black dance from West Africa to the United States. I argue that the process of silencing airborne leaps and staged combat from West African belonging lays the philosophical and historiographic groundwork for originating and containing sub-Saharan influences within plantation and minstrelsy belonging. By revealing where we are, philosophically speaking, in historical narratives of Black dance, and how we got to this point, I propose an extensive re-mapping of sub-Saharan influence through and across the Sahara and Mediterranean, prior to and alongside the trans-Atlantic trade. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. VII FOREWORD ......................................................................................................................... XI FORMATTING NOTES .................................................................................................... XIII INTRODUCTION: DIFFICULT BELONGING, DIASPORIC ESCAPE ........................... 1 THE “FEELING OF JUMP” ........................................................................................... 6 METAPHYSICAL CHOICES OF BELONGING ........................................................ 23 IMPLIED GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL BELONGING ................................... 41 SUB-SAHARAN BLACKNESS AND AFRICAN DIASPORIC BELONGING .......... 50 – 1 – BELONGING THROUGH DISPLACEMENT ........................................................... 65 EMBODIED BELONGING .......................................................................................... 69 ORIGINAL DISPLACEMENT ..................................................................................... 77 STAGING IMAGINED BODIES, OR SUBJUNCTIVE BELONGING ................... 100 – 2 – EUROPEANIST DE COUR ........................................................................................ 120 BALLET AND INTERDEPENDENCE .................................................................... 125 VIRTUOUS BELONGING .......................................................................................... 133 DECOROUS CONQUEST ........................................................................................... 151 MAPPING SILENCE ................................................................................................... 167 – 3 – DANCING WHILE BLACK: GROUNDED THROUGH SAVAGE SILENCE ...... 185 LEAPING WHILE BLACK .......................................................................................... 189 v Captain Towerson’s Logs | Published by Richard Hakluyt ................................ 198 Richard Jobson’s Journal | Two Versions by Samuel Purchas and One Version by Jobson .................................................................................................................... 207 Extracts of Jobson’s Journal in Purchas His Pilgrims .................................. 210 Richard Jobson’s The Golden Trade | Published as a Stand-Alone Book .. 216 Pieter de Marees’s Log | Published by Samuel Purchas ...................................... 227 Willem Bosman’s Book ......................................................................................... 238 Creating a Source, Creating a Fact ....................................................................... 245 SILENCES DENIED ................................................................................................... 248 LOPES AND PIGAFETTA .......................................................................................... 258 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 280 PRIMARY SOURCES ................................................................................................... 280 SECONDARY SOURCES ............................................................................................ 282 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the years, I have been fortunate to learn from and work under many theatre professionals and educators, all of whom contributed to my intellectual and artistic development. I first want to acknowledge those who served on my committee at various stages: Keith Byron Kirk, Bruce McConachie, Michele Reid-Vazquez, Daniel Banks, and Shanara Reid-Brinkley. Their questions and advice helped me throughout the work. I appreciate, as well, the opportunities to learn under noted scholars at the University of Pittsburgh: Attilio Favorini, Marcus Rediker, Reid Andrews, Patrick Manning, and Jocelyn L. Buckner. The Department of Theatre Arts, as a whole, provided significant support. In addition to those already mentioned, I am thankful for the assistance of Connie Markiw, Bria Walker, Annmarie Duggan, Josh Storey, Laura McCarthy, and Pam Weid. I want to thank my final committee members, Kathleen George, Michelle Granshaw, and Neil Doshi, for all the time they took to discuss and think through the project. I am incredibly grateful to Lisa Jackson- Schebetta, for believing in this project and the questions I set out to ask. Without her generosity and trust, this dissertation would have turned out quite differently. An Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship from the University of Pittsburgh, and two summer fellowships from the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, helped fund a portion of the archival research for this dissertation. A Mary McEwen Schimke Fellowship from Wellesley College helped with childcare costs for my son, while I researched, taught, and wrote. I am thankful beyond words, for all of the preschool educators and friends who loved and played with my son, and taught him new ways of looking at the world. vii My parents and siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, have traveled alongside me since before I found theatre, and I hold their perspectives in mind always. My many friends and mentors as mentioned below, have discussed and argued, debated and listened, all while offering me the benefit of trying out my opinions and ideas in productive and conversational spaces. I landed in theatre somewhat by accident, in Mills E. Godwin High School, when Mac Damron led the department. From the friends I made, and the many backstage crew positions I held, I learned how to experiment and fail, how to work collaboratively, and above all, I learned how to listen to multiple sides on complicated topics. I am grateful for all the late night conversations and escapades with friends like Bobby Vrtis, Nicole Laudani, Rachel Tompkins, Lauren Kosteski, Matt Bolte, Virginia Leigh Jackson, Mike Church, Stephen Bristow, Andrew Spanberger, and Leah McCombe Butler. My time at the University of Richmond shaped my theatrical and academic journey in ways I am still discovering. I would not have made it this far without the mentorship and guidance of educators and artists like Walter

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