The Dancer–Drummer–Drum Body: Expanding corporeal experiences through improvisation in black dance

Abstract

This article examines how the dancer–drummer–drum body can expand corporeal experiences through improvisation in black dance. Since the late 1990s, black Brazilian dancer-choreographer Edileusa Santos has argued for a multisensorial engagement in her Dance of Black Expression methodology, as a way to deepen the relationship between drums and bodies. According to Santos, as in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé, the drum is fundamental in African-rooted dance classes; once ‘the drum’s sound emerges in the [dancer’s] body, encouraging the vibrations and sensations; it suggests new possibilities, corporeal experiences, and new attitudes’ (Santos 2015: 53; my translation). Concomitant to Santos’s emphasis on drums’ power to enhance dancers towards new corporeal experiences, organization and identity, Santos invites drummers to perceive dancers’ bodies as musical scores for their compositions. This full way of perceiving others’ expressions and sensations allows dancers and drummers to access personal and collective memories in the context of their ancestry. In this article, I draw from authors in dance and music studies, black performance theories, phenomenology and philosophy of sound and perception to argue that by working with improvisation and advocating for multisensory engagement in a black dance class that is not exclusive to black bodies, Santos expands corporeal experiences by encouraging the exploration of dancers’ and drummers’ body-movements as extensions of drums’ sounds and vibrations. Furthermore, I contend that she decentres notions of the ‘black dancing body’ (Gottschild 2003) by suggesting the emergence of a drum/body and body/drum identity, which is anchored in the notion that dancer, drummer and drum are complementary. Moreover, I borrow from my own bodied experience acquired in Santos’s workshops and conducted interviews to posit the Dance of Black Expression classroom as a space for the creation of self-referenced movements—a space for expressions of blackness that are anchored in black bodies’ experiences but not restricted to them.

Notes

1 This term is inspired by George Balanchine’s quote in which he evokes the engagement of a synaesthesia that can enable us to ‘see the music, [and] hear the dance’ (Balanchine cited in Lamp 2004: 15).

2 Inaicyra Falcão dos Santos focuses on studies around the body and its ancestral memories in dance (2006).

3 Renata Lima Silva reflects about the liminal body as a body positioned at the crossroad where ‘the corporeal identities of Bantu African matrix, established in the historical process of Brazilian cultural development, are updated and recreated’ (2010a: x).

4 Dancer-choreographer Rosangela Silvestre proposes an understanding of the ‘body universe’ symbolized by three triangles formed in the body. The three triangles are connected to the four elements of the nature and Orixás (divinities in Afro-Brazilian Candomblé) energies. In addition, Silvestre refers to the Indu Chakras to enhance dancers’ internal connection with their corporeal alignment.

5 Brenda Dixon Gottschild discusses this concept based on US dancers’ perspectives around black dancers’ participation in the field.

6 The metaphor of dancing and drumming as verbal language is used in this article based on Candomblé percussionists’ testimonies in the texts of Claude Lépine (2004), Suzana Martins (2008), Jorge Sabino and Raul Lody (2011) and Luiz Antonio Simas and Luiz Rufino (2018).

9 As mentioned previously, the metaphor of a verbal language is used among Candomblé drummers and several authors who refer to these practices in Brazil.

7 In Brazil, the Orixá is the term given to the deities, originally of West African origin, who ‘mount’ the devotee’s body through possession during the dance ceremonies of Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. This devotee is known as Iaô.

8 In the Candomblé religion, drummers are referred to as ogãs or alabês (Sabino and Lody 2011: 98).