Mimesis and Alterity in the African Caribbean Quadrille: Ethnography meets History.

This paper begins with an ethnographic account of an African Caribbean quadrille dance workshop for older people in south-east London. It moves from ethnography to cultural history to consider the evolution of the quadrille in France and England, its subsequent transportation to Jamaica and its creolized transformations. This leads to a discussion of the two dance styles performed in the quadrille workshop: the ballroom style and the camp style. The aim is to shed some light on the relation between mimesis and alterity in the performance of the quadrille, from an African Caribbean perspective, in this twenty-first century context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]