Free like the other?

Abstract

This article focuses on the different conceptions and experiences of freedom emanating from the teaching of African dances in Europe, more specifically around the Senegalese dance called Sabar. While African dances are frequently promoted as a vector of self “liberation”, in connection with exotic stereotypes about Africa, the ethnography of Sabar teaching situations reveals that these visions are subject to criticism and that a reform of pedagogies and views of the other is also taking place in these classes, particularly around the teaching of the musico-choreographic “game” of Sabar. Through misunderstandings and disappointments, learning the codes of Sabar improvisation sometimes gives rise to fleeting moments of successful choreographic conversation between students and musicians, and to practices of freedom based on a fragile alignment of the codes and emotions of the participants.