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F O U R Defying the Modern Play of Identities in Gurna Dance Exhortation (ɔ’ge Fɔgε) A hefty dancer in white shorts with a broad chest smeared with white clay peeled off from the dance line and loped up to the crowd. Stopping abruptly a few feet from the inner layer of spectators, he jerked his body, straight-legged, into a menacing stance. His arms were frozen and he gazed, as if unimpressed, over the crowd, displaying his nonchalant coolness in the heat of the dance. Suddenly he exhorted, “Hay yo man-day no! Tõo dik yaŋ ne wel po il ’ansɔ!” (“Hey ho, my cow! Watch out, you boys, or your urine will be blocked!”) In a flash, he turned around and loped back, shuffling straight-legged, swinging effortlessly back to the place in the dance line from which he had emerged. Without missing a beat, he melted into the mass of dancers making their way around the ring. This was a ɔ’ge fɔgε, an improvised dance movement that occurs spontaneously during Tupuri dances. It is the focus of this chapter because it provides an avenue for exploring the relationships between performance, identity, and the production of value in Tupuri society. In 1985 when I first attended Tupuri dances—both the lighthearted rainyseason dances (waywa) and the gurna dances organized for death celebrations—I habitually cowered behind the first line of spectators, apprehensive of the imposing dancers. In 1997 when I returned to Tupuriland with camcorder in hand and the project of filming and analyzing the dance, I was forced to confront the vague fear that lay behind my fascination with it. It was not that my filming was prohibited , since these dances were public functions open to all.1 However, the camera and doubtlessly my outsider presence seemed to attract the menace of the dancers. Sometimes they would come up to me with a heavy stamp of the feet and stare me down. Other times they would call out something in Tupuri, usually a demand for money. Under the pressure to either learn quickly or give up my project, it dawned on me that the fear the dancers generated in the course of the dance, their intimidation of the spectators and their demands for gifts and recognition , were all part of the imaginary constructed by the dance. From then on, as I filmed, I was able to play subtly with the dancers. In spite of their menacing stances, I learned to congratulate them, display my own apprehension, and give them their due as the spectacle they were. 76 Journey of Song No longer fearing for my safety, I began to realize that the dancers were creating a unique discursive space through their performances of the ɔ’ge fɔgε, as unpredictable as these were. The ɔ’ge fɔgε, which means “to throw out a challenge,” was an improvisational dance movement with antecedents in the performance aspects of wrestling. It was usually performed by a single male dancer who detached himself from the mass of dancers or by a segment of a line of dancers who are affiliated by village. Sometimes the movement was silent, the dancer creating drama through his deadpan performance of a blasé gesture like cigarette smoking. Or he might throw out an exhortation to the crowd before turning on his heel and dancing back to his place in the dance line. (Figure 23 shows a pair of dancers performing a ɔ’ge fɔgε.) These exhortations, although spontaneous, were drawn from a repertoire of conventional formulas, images, and sentiments associated with the values of the gurna society. With a humorous and playful tone, they extolled the vigor of gurna dancers and praised the members’ cows, the symbolic foundation of the gurna camp. They also denigrated nonmembers (faŋi). However, what was most interesting to me about the ɔ’ge fɔgε was their oblique assertions about Tupuri experiences of modernity. In my analysis , I saw them calling into question the value of the national modernization project for the Tupuri person by valorizing its opposite: the gurna society and lifeworld and the dignity of farming. They especially denigrated students and schooling and the effeteness assumed to characterize those who did not take up the hoe. These critiques, although evanescent, were important because they tied into broader dilemmas facing contemporary Tupuri society, such as alcoholism, the decline in soil fertility, and the devaluation of education. In fact, the dance context ritually gave the dancer the opportunity to...

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