ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one approach in examining a Pan-African aesthetic, that is an aesthetic that transcends geographical and ethnic boundaries and functions on certain commonalities. The aesthetic principles underlying Nzuri, which Kariamu Welsh has derived from a Zimbabwean form of dance, involves, in our terms, a release of GENE-ius, Grounding, Emergence, Navigating, Effecting. A universal aesthetic that is applicable to all of the arts is valid only within the context of a particular culture based on criteria derived from history and mythology. The process of perception in an African-centred worldview combines the sacred and profane, mind and body, the natural and the supernatural as organic dynamic entities, able to manifest themselves in all sorts of combinations and disciplines, which are totally absent from the prevailing, neoliberal economic forms. Reconceptualisation does not mean Westernisation even when the Afrocentric and Eurocentric aesthetic converge at the core of their humanity.
