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Pulled From the Shadows: William Kentridge's African Dance of Death

Pulled From the Shadows: William Kentridge's African Dance of Death Pulled From the Shadows William Kentridge’s African Dance of Death Ann McCoy n what may be his most haunting production to date, The Head & the Load, performed at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, December 4–15, 2018, IWilliam Kentridge has created a living panorama commemorating the one mil- lion Africans who died on their continent as cogs in the military machinery of the First World War’s battling empires. They died as “counted not named” masses, without rank, without tributes, and without voices—for kings and countries (Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany) that were not their own. Commenting on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the African narrators laments, “Even if I could persuade myself that Franz Josef is dead, I could never persuade myself he was ever alive.” If only they could have fought instead for their own leaders, like the king of the Ashante, imprisoned by the British for decades. This is the darkest side of colonialism, foretold by atrocities like King Leopold II’s ten million mutilated Congolese dead. Regarded as sub-human, and denigrated with monikers like wogs, their lives were spent in hunger, fatigue, and disease, unmarked by anonymity in death, on a vast http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png PAJ A Journal of Performance and Art MIT Press

Pulled From the Shadows: William Kentridge's African Dance of Death

PAJ A Journal of Performance and Art , Volume 41 (2): 8 – May 1, 2019

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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
Copyright © MIT Press
ISSN
1520-281X
eISSN
1537-9477
DOI
10.1162/pajj_a_00460
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Pulled From the Shadows William Kentridge’s African Dance of Death Ann McCoy n what may be his most haunting production to date, The Head & the Load, performed at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, December 4–15, 2018, IWilliam Kentridge has created a living panorama commemorating the one mil- lion Africans who died on their continent as cogs in the military machinery of the First World War’s battling empires. They died as “counted not named” masses, without rank, without tributes, and without voices—for kings and countries (Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany) that were not their own. Commenting on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the African narrators laments, “Even if I could persuade myself that Franz Josef is dead, I could never persuade myself he was ever alive.” If only they could have fought instead for their own leaders, like the king of the Ashante, imprisoned by the British for decades. This is the darkest side of colonialism, foretold by atrocities like King Leopold II’s ten million mutilated Congolese dead. Regarded as sub-human, and denigrated with monikers like wogs, their lives were spent in hunger, fatigue, and disease, unmarked by anonymity in death, on a vast

Journal

PAJ A Journal of Performance and ArtMIT Press

Published: May 1, 2019

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