Black Theatre: Ritual Performance In The African Diaspora

Contents

Contents Paul Carter Harrison Praise/Word 1 part i: african roots Victor Leo Walker II Introduction 13 J. C. de Graft Roots in African Drama and Theatre 18 Babatunde Lawal The African Heritage of African American Art and Performance 39 Tejumola Olaniyan Agones: The Constitution of a Practice 64 Derek Walcott What the Twilight Says: An Overture 88 Gus Edwards Caribbean Narrative: Carnival Characters— In Life and in the Mind 108 Michael McMillan and SuAndi Rebaptizing the World in Our Own Terms: Black Theatre and Live Arts in Britain 115 part ii: mythology and metaphysics Victor Leo Walker II Introduction 131 Wole Soyinka The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy 140 Marta Moreno Vega The Candomblé and Eshu-Eleggua in Brazilian and Cuban Yoruba-Based Ritual 153 Femi Euba Legba and the Politics of Metaphysics: The Trickster in Black Drama 167 Keith L. Walker Art for Life’s Sake: Rituals and Rights of Self and Other in the Theatre of Aimé Césaire 181 May Joseph Sycorax Mythology 209 Joni L. Jones Conjuring as Radical Re/Membering in the Works of Shay Youngblood 227 Victor Leo Walker II Archetype and Masking in LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman 236 part iii: dramaturgical practice Paul Carter Harrison Introduction 247 Deborah Wood Holton The Dramaturg’s Way: Meditations on the Cartographer at the Crossroads 251 Sydné Mahone Introduction to Moon Marked and Touched by Sun 257 Paul K. Bryant-Jackson Kennedy’s Travelers in the American and African Continuum 273 Andrea J. Nouryeh Mojo and the Sayso: A Drama of Nommo That Asks, “Is Your Mojo Working?” 285 Jean Young Ritual Poetics and Rites of Passage in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf 296 viii contents part iv: performance Gus Edwards Introduction 313 Paul Carter Harrison Form and Transformation: Immanence of the Soul in the Performance Modes of Black Church and Black Music 316 Beverly J. Robinson The Sense of Self in Ritualizing New Performance Spaces for Survival 332 Lundeana M. Thomas Barbara Ann Teer: From Holistic Training to Liberating Rituals 345 Amiri Baraka Bopera Theory 378 Keith Antar Mason From Hip-Hop to Hittite: Part X 382 William W. Cook Members and Lames: Language in the Plays of August Wilson 388 Ntozake Shange Porque Tu No M’entrende? Whatcha Mean You Can’t Understand Me? 397 George C. Wolfe Performance Method 400 Eleanor W. Traylor Afterword: Testimony of a Witness 409 About the Contributors 415 contents ix Black Theatre ...