Atkin, Lara (2015) Looking at the Other/Seeing the Self: Embodied Performance and Encounter in Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B and Nineteenth-Century Ethnographic Displays. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, 16 (2). pp. 136-155. ISSN 1753-3171. E-ISSN 1543-1304. (doi:10.1080/17533171.2015.1022415) (KAR id:77265)
PDF
Author's Accepted Manuscript
Language: English |
|
Download this file (PDF/268kB) |
Preview |
Request a format suitable for use with assistive technology e.g. a screenreader | |
PDF
Publisher pdf
Language: English Restricted to Repository staff only |
|
|
![]() |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2015.1022415 |
Abstract
On 23 September 2014, the South African director Brett Bailey found himself in the eye of a media storm over the cancelation of the planned performance of his work Exhibit B by The Barbican at The Vaults in London. The thirteen tableau vivants of Exhibit B each represented a different moment in the history of Euro- pean relations with Africans between the seventeenth century and the present. Media attention focused upon the esthetics of the piece, criticizing Bailey’s use of ethnographic display, a genre of nineteenth-century popular entertainment in which indigenous actors from throughout the colonies performed dances and ritu- als deemed representative of their cultures at various European metropolitan cen- ters. These were carefully curated affairs in which the costumes and props of the performers were surrounded by highly coded messages about the inferiority of non-Europeans to Europeans. Whether deliberately or as a result of the linguistic barriers separating audience from performer, the actors in these shows were neces- sarily silent—embodying the image of the primitive Other. It is Bailey’s use of the ethnographic display to stage a history of the violent domination and subjugation of black Africans at the hands of white Europeans that proved so controversial.
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
DOI/Identification number: | 10.1080/17533171.2015.1022415 |
Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PR English literature |
Divisions: | Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English |
Depositing User: | Lars Atkin |
Date Deposited: | 09 Oct 2019 14:06 UTC |
Last Modified: | 04 Jul 2023 13:16 UTC |
Resource URI: | https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/77265 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes) |
- Link to SensusAccess
- Export to:
- RefWorks
- EPrints3 XML
- BibTeX
- CSV
- Depositors only (login required):