Entangled Counter-Histories: Film Screening and Discussion
William Greaves (dir.), First World Festival of Negro Arts
(New York, distributed by William Greaves Productions, [1966] 2005)
40 mins, sound, black and white, 4 3/4 inch. English.
The film is introduced by Minna Henriksson and Nora Sternfeld and the screening will be followed by a short discussion
“You have to realize that the reason why I went into motion pictures was to make films like The First World Festival of Negro Arts. It was the first opportunity I had to make films that expressed a black perspective on reality. Until then I had not had access to financing which would permit that.”
— William Greaves
The African-American film-maker William Greaves, who is most known for his avant-garde film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) was originally dispatched to Dakar, Senegal, to shoot a historic gathering of black artists and intellectuals from throughout the African diaspora. The United States Information Agency (U.S.I.A.) commissioning Greaves for the documentary wanted a five-minute news clip. Upon arriving, however, Greaves immediately realized the value of a longer piece. He, his cameraman, and driver shot as much footage as possible, largely without synchronous sound.
The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966) features performances by dancers from throughout the black world and appearances by Duke Ellington, Katherine Dunham, Langston Hughes (whose poetry frames the film), and many others. Greaves's juxtapositions explore and affirm the links between African and African-American culture.
It was Africans, however, rather than African Americans, who were given the opportunity to appreciate these links: while First World Festival proved the most popular U.S.I.A. film in Africa for the following decade, U.S. I. A. films were prohibited at the time (and until recently) from distribution in the United States. Although such links could have been radicalizing for African Americans, this affirmation was more likely to serve a conservative agenda when presented to Africans - in suggesting greater identity with the United States and, by implication, with its Vietnam-era policies. If the film is considered in terms of the politics of production, however, it represents an important achievement.
About the festival: The First World Festival of Negro Arts was a modern cultural event on an unprecedented scale in Africa and, as its official title suggests, the organizers were keenly aware of its pioneering status. The festival ran from 1 to 24 April 1966. It was inaugurated by the Senegalese poet-president Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Over the course of three and a half weeks, more than 2,500 artists, musicians, performers and writers, including Senghor and Aimé Césaire (two of the three founding figures of Negritude), gathered in Dakar. In essence, the festival sought to situate culture at the heart of the post- imperial world. Leaders of these emerging postcolonial countries had famously gathered in Bandung in 1955 and Senghor’s close ally, Alioune Diop, founder of the Présence Africaine journal and publishing house, dreamed of ‘un Bandung intellectuel pour l’Afrique’ [an intellectual Bandung for Africa]: the political revolution would now be accompanied by a philosophical and cultural revolution.
For Senghor, “the real heart of the Festival” was a vast exhibition of “classical” African artworks, “Negro Art” at the newly built Musée Dynamique, a monumental Classical structure perched on a promontory overlooking the sea. “Negro Art” assembled some of the finest examples of “traditional” African art, borrowed from museums and private collectors from around the world. These were exhibited alongside a selection of works by Picasso, Léger, and Modigliani, borrowed from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, in a fascinating contrast between traditional sources and the modern masterpieces inspired by them.
The Second Festival of Black Arts and Culture finally took place in Lagos in 1977. The four major PanAfrican festivals of the 1960s–70s were: Dakar ‘66, Algiers ‘69, Kinshasa ‘74, Lagos ‘77). Senegal hosted the Third World Festival of Negro Arts (FESMAN) in December 2010.
Sources:
http://www.williamgreaves.com/filmquarterly.htm
Murphy, David, The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966, Liverpool University Press, 2016.
Murphy, David, Dakar 66: Chronicles of a PanAfrican Festival Musée du Quai Branly, Paris February 16–May 15, in African Arts, VOL. 50, NO. 1 SPRING 2017
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