ABSTRACT
In a Paris dance studio in the now-hip district of Ménilmontant, just down the boulevard from Belleville, a young man wearing the latest dancewear, with a bandana headscarf, teaches a class how to point in the manner of Uncle Sam’s “I WANT YOU”: “Stop before the elbow is straight,” he says. “Stop the gesture in motion. Otherwise you’ll look like a beginner.” 1 The teacher is a professional dancer in the hip-hop style; he is French— Parisian—but his parents or grandparents came from the Côte d’Ivoire. While pointing the finger attributed to the U.S. icon, appropriated by U.S. hip-hop as a gesture of anger, of accusation, he mimes the rage of working “for the man” and masterfully performs a theatricalization of black America.
