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Abstract
On June 30 2010, in Kinshasa, a “drama” unfolded as the military march was abruptly interrupted by street children intermingling and enacting ndombolo-inspired dances in front of the president. Police and soldiers started beating up people; the state radio and television channels aborted the live broadcasts; and people were urged to return home. The order and discipline that the military march had expressed, had in a few seconds given way to chaos.
I take this “drama” as a case to study political sensibilities in contemporary Kinshasa. The main premise is that performances are not merely ‘representations’, but are also crucial events within the circulation of feelings and affects. Therefore, both political aesthetics and affects involved in this ‘drama of Independence Day’ will be studied. I first juxtapose the various aesthetics at play in the independence festivities, both performed in the défilé (military-inspired aesthetics) and afterwards (the ‘popular’, sexually explicit dances); and then analyse the ways in which these performances and reactions express different senses of ‘nationhood’ and different relations to the state.