Race on Stage: Inszenierungen von Differenz in Musik und Tanz in Paris, Havanna und New York zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen

• Published in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 2011-01, Vol.136 (2), p.239-264
• Main Author: Kummels, Ingrid
• Format: Article
• Language: ger
• ISSN: 0044-2666

This article analyzes the contributions of internationally mobile artists to cabaret performances referring to racial stereotypes between the World Wars. Musicians, singers and dancers classified in Cuba as mulatos or negros and female artists who were not conceded an equal access to the music business during the 1920s and 1930s seized new opportunities in the context of New York's Harlem Renaissance and Paris' Tumulte Noir. They were motivated to work in these cities not only for economical reasons, but also because of the potentiality they ascribed to cabaret music and dance as means for overcoming racism. I explore to what extent they were able to introduce versions of "black culture" that differed from the exoticizing representations privileged by "white" impresarios. The performances are analyzed as sites in which heterogenous actors inscribed imaginaries of race. Travelling between the diverging racial regimes of the three cities (which all constructed a similar bipolar racial order), the artists instituted more realistic perspectives on music and dance on the transnational stages based on their local knowledge. Ultimately these Cuban artists contributed to a diversification of what was considered to be "black culture" in Havana, Paris and New York.