ABSTRACT
This chapter, the ‘man dem section’, focusing on dancehall masculinity and the notion of both mortal and spiritual kinship, foregrounds the creation of a ‘dancehall spirituality’ through the performance and performative articulation of corporeal dancing bodies. Western Christian perspectives privilege speech and the voice as the major means of communication, thereby restricting corporeality. Theologian Elochukwu E. Uzukwu affirms, ‘dance was gradually eliminated from the liturgy in medieval Christendom’ (1997 p.6). Yet, the corporeal dancing body remains a crucial, integral and versatile component of African/neo-African interaction and cultural expression. The centrality of religious and spiritual practices within most African worldviews is correctly articulated by Bolaji Idowu as occupying ‘our inner most beings’ (1973 p.1). Therefore, spiritual and religious devotion is often regarded as representing life itself within many African/neo-African belief systems.
Hence, continuities between dancehall and African/neo-African corporeal dancing bodies are investigated relating to: ‘communitas’ (Turner, 1969) meaning community cohesion; Kinaesthetic movement; and ‘signifying practice’ (De Saussure, 1966), in this chapter. Demonstrating spirituality's (en)coded and reimagined social functioning, it also illustrates how dancing bodies within both spaces may be analogously read, highlighting the crucial role social cohesion plays as part of the survival mechanisms facilitated by dance in dancehall culture.
