ABSTRACT
Attempting to demonstrate the dancing body within the Jamaican dancehall space transfers spiritual (en)coding, chapter five focuses on dancehall's ‘early vibes’ section, representing the sanctification of the space. A comparative examination of the dancehall and African/neo-African ritual spaces provides a framework for reading dancehall as a ritual ground. Adopting the general format of a dancehall session, through corporeal dancing bodies, this and subsequent Chapters 6-8 address three key questions: Is the spiritual worldview of African forbears reimagined within the dancehall space? Is the dancing body a vessel for the transference of spiritual (en)coding within the Jamaican dancehall space? What spiritualities are emerging from dancehall?
The transference of religious coding is explored through the preparation of the dancehall space and activities during the ‘early vibes’ section, whilst illustrating how corporeal dancing bodies facilitate an emergent ‘dancehall spirituality’ rooted and routed through African/neo-African practices and worldviews. Dancehall is also explored as a means of social ordering and structure, providing symbolic iconography and an existential/hermeneutical function as a cathartic coping strategy for practitioners. Thus, the ‘early vibes’ section is established as the setting up of the dancehall ‘ritual’ space and the spiritual foundation upon which the subsequent sections of the dance ritual builds.
