Given that slaveholders prohibited
the creation of African-style performing objects, is there a
traceable connection between traditional African puppets, masks, and
performing objects and contemporary African American puppetry? This
study approaches the question by looking at the whole performance
complex surrounding African performing objects and examines the
material culture of object performance.
Object
Performance in the Black Atlantic
argues that since human beings can attribute private, personal
meanings to objects obtained for personal use such as dolls, vessels,
and quilts, the lines of material culture continuity between African
and African American object performance run through objects that
performed in ritual rather than theatrical capacity. Split into three
parts, this book starts by outlining the spaces where the African
American object performance complex persisted through the period of
slavery. Part Two traces how African Americans began to reclaim
object performance in the era of Jim Crow segregation and Part Three
details how increased educational and economic opportunities along
with new media technologies enabled African Americans to use
performing objects as a powerful mode of resistance to the
objectification of Black bodies.
This
is an essential study for any students of puppetry and material
performance, and particularly those concerned with African American
performance and performance in North America more broadly.