Aesthetics and possession: Katherine Dunham’s ‘Shango’ and the Black Dance Performance tradition

In this article, I explore the aesthetic interconnectedness between Katherine Dunham’s ‘Shango’ and Haitian Vodou spirit possession (a sublime embodiment). I assert that Dunham’s ‘Shango’ catalyses an aesthetic of Black Dance Performance through the enactment of spirit possession as an aesthetic value within the choreography and Black Dance Performance largely. I employ an intertextual, phenomenological and auto-ethnographic lens as navigational tools through the foundational theories of Immanuel Kant, Roberto Strongman, Karen MCarthy Brown and Yvonne Daniel. Specifically centring the sublime as a philosophical anchor reveals the intersection of the sacred and the secular in performance as aesthetically enmeshed and entangled.