Decolonizing time through dance with Kwenda Lima

Cabo Verde, creolization, and affiliative afromodernity

Bibliographic Data

ID2173171
AuthorsAnanya Jahanara Kabir (0000-0003-1895-8412, King's College London)
Year2019
Volume31
Issue3
Pages318-333
Publication date2019-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696815.2018.1512849
OpenAlexW2891376108
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited24

This essay examines the dance practice of the Lisbon-based artiste Kwenda Lima (born 1977 at Sal, Cabo Verde), as manifested on three levels: the pedagogy of the Luso-African social dance, kizomba; a form of dance therapy, which he calls 'Kaizen dance'; and the choreography of 'Afro-contemporary' dance. Through the interplay of these levels Lima responds to the specific characteristics of Lusophone (post)colonialism as well as the general problems of modernity involving time, work, and materialism. These responses are shaped by the post-imperial urban space of Lisbon, the transnational world of social dance, as well as his personal networks linking Cabo Verde, continental West Africa, and Europe. Moreover, Lima's dance incorporates references to Cabo Verde's history of creolization and various non-Lusophone postcolonial cultural influences. An affiliative afromodernity is generated, which reconfigures the relationship between race, authenticity, and appropriation while decolonizing time through dance

Appropriation · Archaeology · Art · Cape verde · Choreography · Colonialism · Contemporary dance · Creolization · Dance · Ethnology · Folk dance · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Literature, Culture, and Criticism · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · History

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