Filega/In Search: Embodying Community in Ethiopia

Hui Niu Wilcox; Melaku Belay

doi:10.33303/gpsv5n1-2a115

Authors

Hui Niu Wilcox St. Catherine University
Melaku Belay Fendika Cultural Center

Abstract

This paper offers a decolonial reading of Filega, an annual grassroots street performance organized by Ethiopian dance artist Melaku Belay in the context of an Orthodox Christian religious festival Timket. Our contextualized reading illuminates Ethiopian artists’ capacity to create beauty, joy and community; they do so by disrupting the dichotomies between discipline and freedom, the sacred and the profane. Filega’s decolonial significance also lies in its potential to transform public spaces and collective memories in service of community. In constructing this paper, we seek to decolonize our writing practice by unsettling the theory/practice dichotomy, and by experimenting with modes of co-authorship. Along with Filega participants and witnesses, we search for decolonized understandings of self, community, and discipline.

Author Biographies

Hui Niu Wilcox, St. Catherine University

Hui Niu Wilcox is Professor of Sociology at St. Catherine University. She is a founding artist of Ananya Dance Theatre (ananyadancetheatre.org), a dance company building a transnational women-of-color feminist contemporary dance aesthetics. Her research focuses on sociology of dance in connection to ethnic identities and racialization, as well as on the socio-political implications of cultural performances in Ethiopia, in collaboration with Ethiopian artists. She is a co-editor (with Ananya Chatterjea and Alessandra Williams) of Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice (University of Washington Press 2022).

Melaku Belay, Fendika Cultural Center

Melaku Belay is the director of Fendika Cultural Center (fendika.org), president of Ethiopian Dance Art Association, world-renowned Ethiopian dancer. Melaku is committed to the development of Ethiopian performance culture and heritage. Under Melaku’s leadership since 2008, Fendika is the first music venue in Addis Ababa that pays regular salary to traditional musicians and dancers. It is a home to artists of many disciplines and cultural backgrounds, offering a multidisciplinary program including music, dance, and visual art. Among his many international recognitions, Melaku was a 2022 TED Fellow (his TED talk can be viewed at https://go.ted.com/melakubelay)

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