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On multiplicity and performance: The complexities of Bedu mask dances in the Bondoukou region (Côte d’Ivoire)

Publication date: 2013-01-01
Volume: 176 Pages: 141 - 170
ISSN: 978-9-4916-1509-2
Publisher: Royal Museum for Central Africa; Tervuren

Author:

Arnaut, Karel
Bouttiaux, Anne-Marie

Abstract:

This chapter sets out to discover the multiplicity hiding behind the monolithic face of the communal masquerade known as Bedu. Taking its lead from the research programme of René Bravmann and from an emerging materialist perspective on ritual and cultural expression, this chapter explores the diversity of Bedu in its nomenclatura, its physiognomy, and its idiomatic context, as well as in its transformative performances. The ethnographic focus is double. In the first part on diversity of labelling, morphology and idiom of Bedu, the focus is on the songs that accompany all genres of activity related to the Bedu mask and express, illustrate, and reflect upon these activities. In the second part, the focus is equally divided between the many peripheral, semi-public, and dispersed ritual acts of the preparatory phases and the grand, public moments of denouement, in order to grasp the many and complex trajectories that eventually merge into the central stages of collective vibrancy. In conclusion I argue that the Bedu performances bring together what they separate; stated otherwise, Bedu performances unpick the community whose unity and collective strength they commemorate and celebrate. In that respect Bedu events qualify as ‘rites of convergence’ ‘where heterogeneous elements are thrown into one compositional assemblage over a specific duration’ (Chau 2012).