Practices of Performing at Senegalese Sabar Dance Events

Abstract

In my PhD thesis Performing a Tradition in Music and Dance (2014), I analyzed sabar dance events as ‘places’ for (re)constructing social relationships, identities, and tradition. In these celebrations, the participants in a sense perform themselves and their relationships to others present, embodying communal conceptions of their social roles and the related norms and values, but sometimes also challenging them. These performances of self can thus primarily be identified as cultural performatives, following Butler, but they still happen in the frame of the dance event, which allows also expressions deviating from the performatives of everyday situations. Here, I will consider how the modes of performance in sabar dance events can be characterized in addition to the obvious repetition and variation of traditional dance genres. Additionally, I will reflect on the value of practical involvement in performance as a methodological tool in ethnographic fieldwork.