Abidjan USA Music, Dance, and Mobility in the Lives of Four Ivorian Immigrants [Hardcover]

Daniel B. Reed integrates individual stories with the study of performance to understand the forces of diaspora and mobility in the lives of musicians, dancers, and mask performers originally from C?te d'Ivoire who now live in the United States. Through the lives of four Ivorian performers, Reed finds that dance and music, being transportable media, serve as effective ways to understand individual migrants in the world today. As members of an immigrant community who are geographically dispersed, these performers are unmoored from their place of origin and yet deeply engaged in presenting their symbolic roots to North American audiences. By looking at performance, Reed shows how translocation has led to transformations on stage, but he is also sensitive to how performance acts as a way to reinforce and maintain community. Abidjan USA provides a multifaceted view of community that is at once local, national, and international, and where identity is central, but transportable, fluid, and adaptable.

EM Series Preface
Preface: A Confluence of Beginnings
Acknowledgements
Notes on Language

Part I. Program Notes
1. Introduction: Abidjan USA
2. Ballet as Nexus of Discourses

Part II. Stages and Stories
Act I. Vado Diomande
3. Kekene: the Performance of Oneness in NYC
4. If you arent careful, you dont know where you will end up! : Vado Diomande and Transcendence

Act II. Samba Diallo
5. Culture brings everybody together : Samba Diallos Ayoka
6. Im happy because Im different : Samba Diallo and Exceptionalism

Act III. Sogbety Diomande
7. You know youre in a different country : Sogbety Diomandes West African Drum and Dance
8. When ls�