Radicals in the Renaissance: The Williams & Walker Performance Collective, a transatlantic epigraph to black power?

Millette, Holly-Gale (2013) Radicals in the Renaissance: The Williams & Walker Performance Collective, a transatlantic epigraph to black power? Radical Americas Symposium, Institute of the Americas, University College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom. 28 - 29 Jan 2013. (Submitted)

Abstract

In October of 1903 the Williams & Walker touring collective opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in its acclaimed performance of In Dahomey. In Dahomey was the most economically and critically successful of all the turn of the century black theatricals. Its success does not entirely chime with its content: the show was entirely anchored by the ‘Uplift’ of a race, the subversion of imperialism, and diasporic identities seeking legitimate power. To succeed, the politically active cast engaged in a double-consciousness of presentation to ‘sell’ the show. Its main plot was the repatriation and reclamation of an African Kingdom by a pair of ex-enslaved African Americans. The pair, played by George Walker and Bert Williams, had met while suffering through the pain of performing as ‘authentic Africans’ in various colonial displays and exhibitions in the West of America. This paper discusses the Williams and Walker performance collective, their tour of England and their show In Dahomey, and speculates on their engagement with European and American radicals of their time. My thoughts are that personal pain led them to act collectively to subvert popular entertainment in a two-way cathartic dance of resistance. In this, the stage was very much a mediated cultural contact zone between radical performers and liberal spectators. The Company’s success placed them, on their return, at the pinnacle of Harlem Renaissance’s elite, a group of people and an epoch that burnt fast and died young. However, the strides they made toward radicalising their brethren and uplifting their race were quite long ones. I see their story as an epigram to the narrative of their race’s politicisation and expressions of Black Power later in the century.

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Contributors

Author: Holly-Gale Millette

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