Dancing the Kleptocene

Abstract

Dance writings appear widely in early colonial documents. This essay studies danceways and land as I turn to Kyle Keeler’s neologism ‘Kleptocene’ to examine memory, extraction, and ecology with a focus on ‘New France.’ Following Bitterroot Salish scholar Tarren Andrews’ insights addressing an ‘Indigenous turn’ in medieval studies, ‘Dancing the Kleptocene’ investigates criticism of the Doctrine of Discovery in ongoing acts of protest, decolonising the arts, and history. With the notion of the danceway, I address kinesthetic practices by examining dance writing in claims made by Samuel de Champlain, the Jesuit relations, and Madame de la Peltrie, each commenting on ‘ballets’ in early seventeenth-century Turtle Island in North America. Connected to this, the article then turns to and examines the work of Aquinnah Wampanoag artist Elizabeth James-Perry on Indigenous practices of bead and memory work as well as histories of colonial violence and enslavement.