Despite the prohibitions and coercive order of plantations, slaves deployed a Maroon gesture of resistance and emancipation through performance. What do such subversive acts mean today in 2021? A creative stance for Afro-contemporary playwrights like Kossi Efoui, Koffi Kwahulé, Suzan-Lori Parks or artists like Basquiat; a Maroon stance of resistance that consists of adapting, of constantly reinventing oneself, of never being where you are expected, to change state and in the end to dissemble in the heart of the forest of the world to better play against the established order, institutions and colonial legacies. Ultimately, the current crisis could well invite us to consider Maroon gestures that, since jazz, inspire Afro-descendant creation as a model of salvation for theatre creation to come.

Bio:

A specialist in African and diaspora dramaturgies, Sylvie Chalaye is also a historian and anthropologist of African performance and Black performing arts throughout the world. A professor and research director at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, she co-directs the Institut de Recherche en Études Théâtrales (Institute for Research in Theatre Studies) and created the SeFeA (Scènes francophones et écritures de l’altérité) laboratory, which examines otherness in francophone plays and literature. Her latest work, Race et théâtre : un impensé politique, was published by Actes Sud-Papiers and received the André Malraux prize in 2020.