In Performance and Politics in Tanzania, Laura Edmondson examines how                  politics, social values, and gender are expressed on stage. Now a disappearing                  tradition, Tanzanian popular theatre integrates comic sketches, acrobatics,                  melodrama, song, and dance to produce lively commentaries on what it means to be                  Tanzanian. These dynamic shows invite improvisation and spontaneous and raucous                  audience participation as they explore popular sentiments. Edmondson asserts that                  these performances overturn the boundary between official and popular art and offer                  a new way of thinking about African popular culture. She discusses how the blurring                  of state agendas and local desires presents a charged environment for the                  exploration of Tanzanian political and social realities: What is the meaning of                  democracy and who gets to define it? Who is in power, and how is power exposed or                  concealed? What is the role of tradition in a postsocialist state? How will the                  future of the nation be negotiated? This engaging book provides important insight                  into the complexity of popular forms of expression during a time of political and                  social change in East Africa.

Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage (African Expressive Cultures) PDF

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