Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in New York and Dakar, this
book explores the Senegalese dance-rhythms Sabar from the research
position of a dance student. It features a comparative analysis of the
pedagogical techniques used in dance classes in New York and Dakar,
which in turn shed light on different aesthetics and understandings of
dance, as well as different ways of learning, in each context. Pointing
to a loose network of teachers and students who travel between New York
and Dakar around the practice of West African dance forms, the author
discusses how this movement is maintained, what role the imagination
plays in mobilizing participants and how the 'cultural flow' of the
dances is 'punctuated' by national borders and socio-economic
relationships. She explores the different meanings articulated around
Sabar's transatlantic movement and examines how the dance floor provides
the grounds for contested understandings, socio-economic relationships
and broader discourses to be re-choreographed in each setting.