Against archiving Africa on the stage

Abstract

This article elaborates questions of the doctoral project Transcriptions of traditions: presence and movement of elements of africanities in contemporary scenes, problematizing the construction of the artistic imaginary about Africa in the theater, from the misunderstandings that the concept of archive can bring to the complexities of the ideoplastic transpositions of African and Afro-diasporic cultural systems to the contemporary theatrical-performative scene. In dialogue with different theorists of contemporary African art, this work aims to present lines of escape for a creative relationship with the elements of africanities in the post-dramatic scenes beyond the reading of Africa as an archival object.