Theoretical understandings of nationalism have advanced significantly since early conceptualizations equating nations with a shared intrinsic personality defined by racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and/or religious traits. Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, Bruce Kapferer, and Michael Herzfeld, among others, moved us past such simplistic associations and exposed the hidden contestations and contradictions inherent in the construction of every nation—no matter how seemingly coherent. Other scholars subsequently exposed the continual labor that nationalism entails, from the constitutive role of print media (Benedict Anderson), to invented traditions supporting nationalistic odes of origin (Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger), from museum displays as material manifestations of peoples (Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett), to the ways popular musicians define and contest nationalist agendas (Thomas Turino, Marissa Moorman, and myself).

In his 2015 book, Staging Ghana: Artistry and Nationalism in State Dance Ensembles, Paul Schauert examines how designated representatives of the nation-state perform and re-form the nation for both domestic and international consumption. Studies of national performance troupes from Richard Handler’s work in Quebec, to Jay Straker’s in Guinea, Francesca Castaldi’s in Senegal, and my own and Laura Edmondson’s in Tanzania expose the negotiations involved in the production of “national” performances. How performers are recruited (or forced) into service; how “tradition” is modified to suit political agendas; and how rhetorics and logics of statehood are recast in indigenous idioms are but some of the issues explored in these works and by Schauert. However, while all these authors show how individuals contribute to and leave their mark on nation-building endeavors, often altering them in the process, Schauert takes the conversation a step further by arguing that individuals “employ state/national resources to accomplish objectives outside the purview of the nation and the state” (8). In other words, he upends the typical assessment of power dynamics to emphasize (a là Foucault, de Certeau, and Bayart) that while states certainly leverage significant political and economic resources to shape and showcase representations of the nation and to police discordant versions, non-elite individuals can exploit those same resources to personalize nationalism and to secure stature, opportunity, and material benefit. Nationalism does not merely serve the collective but can also offer a means of self-advancement and self-fulfillment; it constitutes a “unique tool for constructing the self” (11, also 19). Schauert thus modifies conventional understandings of nationalism and defines it as “a set of embodied practices and modes of experience that contribute to various degrees to the staging of the nation, the development of corporeal ontology, the construction of the self, and the foundations for meaningful lives” (27, emphasis in original).

Schauert employs a range of methods to discern the experiences and accomplishments of performers in Ghana’s two national troupes: the Ghana Dance Ensemble (GDE), based at the University of Ghana in Legon, and the National Dance Company (NDC), based at the National Theatre in Accra. History, ethnography, participant-observation, phenomenology, and what he terms “corporeal” or “kinesthetic ontology” (26) all define his approach. His long-term engagements with musicians, dancers, and artistic directors (past and present) in both ensembles yield an abundance of data to support his claims that national dance presentations heighten and transform traditional cultural forms to produce “spectacular staging.” While making claims to authenticity, these performers manage ethnic diversity, depoliticizing it in the process, and staging the spectacle of an ethnically united nation-state. “Authenticity” gives way to processes of “authentification” (borrowing from Kirshenblatt-Gimblett) where the messengers—these cultural “soldiers” who themselves represent the diversity of the state—become the message. Moreover, in contrast to rural contexts where traditional performances are characterized by collective composition and participation, national performances on the proscenium stage separate artistic directors from performers, and performers from audience. Schauert details how the spectacular effects of exaggerated movements, increased tempos, and disciplined choreography serve to offset, and compensate for, audience non-participation.

Through careful ethnography and interviews, Schauert also shows how performers in these national ensembles employ “tactical artistry” (14) to manage nationalism (7, 8). He provides multiple examples of how performers navigate contexts where their own political beliefs are in conflict with their assigned roles as state representatives. Here the art of indirection and use of silence and unenthusiastic performance (drawing on James Scott’s “hidden transcripts”) offer performers a means of critique and political resolution. “Through their training they not only become virtuosos of music and dance but also masters of managing the political and social order” (37).

Schauert further explores how the transformation of rural dance forms does not end with the movement from village to stage. Rather, as national ensembles join a global order of performed nationalisms, they absorb and embrace modernist, cosmopolitan modes of dance and embodiment. Tracing the rise of contemporary African dance in Ghana, and in particular its champion in Ghana, Francis Nii-Yartey, first director of the NDE, Schauert engages a debate common to all nationalist projects, namely, how much change is allowable when representing something purportedly “traditional”? The associations of “tradition” with stasis, while conducive to rhetorical formulations of national cultural uniqueness, nevertheless require modification to be translatable to global performance circuits. So, for instance, Schauert identifies “temporal compression” as one accommodation to cosmopolitan aesthetics: staged performances are typically highly abbreviated versions of the traditions from which they are derived, since a non-Ghanaian audience would be unlikely to sustain interest in a more “authentic” performance, lacking the understanding that renders the performance meaningful and lacking the ability to participate in it.

This process of transformation to a cosmopolitan aesthetic enables some individuals (typically artistic directors) to personalize nationalism by choreographing tradition and taking sole credit for doing so—this despite the creativity actually contributed by dancers, musicians, and visiting ethnomusicologists. My one criticism is that “cosmopolitanism” is all too frequently an ideological device that masks what is essentially “Westernization.” The directionality of appropriation is skewed by global power relations. Non-Western artists must learn and adopt a corporeal canon of Western contemporary dance vocabulary in order to be recognized as members of a performance elite that can access the highly coveted opportunity of international tours. Western artists, by contrast, can pilfer whatever they wish from performance traditions around the world, eventually subsuming some of these elements into the corporeal canon, which then have to be re-learned in their modified form by those seeking cosmopolitan status (an unequal feedback loop). Schauert admits this to an extent but argues for a leveling effect that re-balances the power dynamic: “While these choreographies often use Western practices (such as orchestration, dynamics, thematic small-group improvisation, and ‘open’ movements), I maintain that overall, through the use of indigenous rhythms, melodies, and movements, the African-ness or Ghanaian-ness of these pieces dominates, thus representing an Africanization of Western culture” (280). Yet some of Schauert’s own informants describe Ghanaian contemporary dance as something foreign, raising questions about the efficacy of Africanization.

In summary, Paul Schauert offers a significant contribution to scholarship on nationalism, performance, and Ghanaian studies, and is to be commended for taking current debates into interesting new directions. Highly recommended.

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[Review length: 1149 words • Review posted on February 15, 2017]