EXOTICA – On the brown history of European dance

Endangered Human Movements Vol.2

Performance

In early 20th century Europe, artists La Sarabia, Nyota Inyoka, François Benga and Leila Bederkhan presented their dances in Europe with great success. Yet the where not recognise in western dance history and were forgotten disappearing from collective memory.  Amanda Piña breathes new life into their works with Exótica, tracing back the heritage of racialised artists performing in European theatre stages in what she refers as „the brown history of European dance“. Exótica is an exuberant ritual conceived as a séance through which dancers as ancestors, queer and femmes of color from the past and the present re-appear on stage and come into conversation with the (white) gaze and the ancestry of the audience. Their performative presence opens a space for reenactments; Initiating invocations, exorcisms and celebration

La Sarabia, (1878-1988), Nyota Inyoka, (1896-1971), François “Féral” Benga (1906–1957) Leila Bederkhan (1903-1986) once travelled through Europe presenting their dances. They operated between the lines of the white exotic gaze. What kind of work did these dancers and choreographers of colour made at the time and how it was perceived?  What relevance does this heritage  has today? What is still present of their contexts (racism and the white gaze) in our contexts of work within Europe and beyond?

 

 Amanda Piña:

“Within this new volume of research I would like to get to know my direct ancestors, they represent the brown history of European dance; Women and queer fellow artists, dancers and choreographers of color living and working in Europe at the beginning of the 20th Century. To host their reappearance is the vision and intention of this new work, an invocation and a spiritual quest on the implications of whiteness, understood as an -invisible for itself- embodied ideology, an unmarked and unnamed position”.

Review by Giulia Casalini on Dance Art Journal here

 

 

 

 

 

Picture.Venuri Perera as Nyota Inyoka by Tammo Walter.