ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses issues of power and corporality with specific reference to kanyeleng musical performance practices and understandings of the body. It argues that embodied musical participation enables kanyeleng to steal power – to communicate, mobilize, and enact change. From a kanyeleng framework, stealing is a responsibility, not a crime: stealing gives health to kanyeleng and their families, and blessings to the victim. Kanyeleng frameworks of participation and embodiment are just as important as their verbal messages for promoting health in the local context. The way musicians such as kanyeleng negotiate participation in the space of performance holds relevance for larger questions of participation, power, and health development. As the Teriyaa example shows, however, diversity in the settings and forms of engagement with recorded music can spawn diverse forms of participation. Kanyeleng ritual knowledge of fertility and the body underlies their song and dance, and their shamelessness makes room for laughter in the space of health expertise.
