This book is the first to discuss Contemporary African Dance Theatre aesthetics in the context of phenomenology, whiteness and the gaze. Rather than a discussion of African dance per se the author challenges perceptions of contemporary dance theatre from a critical race studies perspective to interrogate the extent to which white supremacy and privilege weave through capitalist necropolitics today. With a focus on white spectatorship the book presents an experiment in phenomenological un-suturing to interrogate the possibilities of dance to deconstruct and problematize the all too often unacknowledged violence of the white gaze and its systemic racism at work programming African contemporary dance theatre on the Western festival stage. Methodologically the book offers readings in dance phenomenology to account for the affective dimension of racial un-suturing as the often painful process of unpacking internalized race bias and habitus that mark white fragility as privileged and unacknowledged in most instances of everyday life. With a focus on choreographic analysis and aesthetics the book explores the multiple dramaturgical strategies makers of Contemporary African Dance Theatre employ and develop to engage audiences in an affective experience that challenges white spectatorship to address white fragility and colonial guilt at their core. As a political critique of white supremacy the book thus highlights the way in which the white gaze is a fundamental pillar of capitalist necropolitics and its oppressive symbology impacting on world politics today. Works considered cover a broad range of dance choreography by artists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Canada and the US as they travel, create, and show their works internationally to global audiences to contest racial divides and white supremacist politics. weiterlesen