Affect, creativity, and community‐making in a Congolese song‐dance performance: or how to follow the movement of the social

Abstract

In rural Punu society, song‐dance performances of rejoicing are deeply connected with forces of regeneration; they not only celebrate the sexual encounter but also, in their constituent dynamic, aim progressively to awaken a shared feeling of joy that leads to the intensification of the dancing and to the creation and diffusion of new songs. I seek to account for this regenerative potential by pursuing Turner's processual view of ritual performance, which acknowledges moments of structure and lack of structure. In this regard, I develop the dynamic of community‐making and creative flow in the performances with reference to Collins's reading of Durkheim's collective effervescence and Tarde's idea of imitation. As a whole, I argue that paying attention to rhythm and affect, inasmuch as they are a lived realization of structure and flow, is essential for understanding the revitalizing articulation between these terms and for following the ongoing movement of the social.