Remembering Nyota Inyoka: Queering Narratives of Dance, Archive, and Biography

Abstract

In this article, the three co-authors collaboratively address practices of queering in relation to the Parisian choreographer of color Nyota Inyoka (1896–1971), whose biography and identity remain mysterious even after extensive research. Writing from three different research perspectives and relating to three different aspects of her life and work, the co-authors analyze Nyota Inyoka and practices of Queering the Archive, her staging of Shiva as a performance of (culturally) “queer possibility,” and the act of remembering Nyota Inyoka in a contemporary context in terms of queering ethnicity and “cultural belonging.” Juxtaposing and interweaving notions and practices of queering and créolité/creolizing over the course of the article, the co-authors attempt to respect Nyota Inyoka's “right to opacity” (Glissant [1996] 2020, 45) and remember her on her own terms.