This article presents a polycentric Africanist reading of Dada Masilo's Giselle, which debuted in South Africa in 2017. Although ballet was used as a tool of colonization in South Africa, establishing cultural and aesthetic norms from a European paradigm, while undermining Indigenous arts and excluding non-white artists, I argue that Dada Masilo's choreographic choices employ the narrative of Giselle to decolonize through ballet. Masilo's choreography indigenizes the ballet, transforming local and global practices through an Indigenous lens. Dada Masilo's Giselle embodies African philosophies such as ancestorism, as well as gender fluidity and complementarity. It mobilizes techniques such as signifyin(g), comedic resistance, code-switching, battling, shouting, and critically reappropriating Tswana and diasporic movements in order to convey a distinctly South African version of the European ballet. This work transcends the romantic love of Giselle in order to convey a decolonial love by centering South African ways of knowing and being in the world.

中文翻译：

---

达达马西洛的吉赛尔：非殖民地爱情故事

这篇文章呈现了一个多中心的非洲主义者阅读达达马西洛的吉赛尔，于 2017 年在南非首次亮相。尽管芭蕾舞在南非被用作殖民化的工具，从欧洲范式建立文化和审美规范，同时破坏土著艺术并排斥非白人艺术家，但我认为达达马西洛的编舞选择使用的叙述吉赛尔通过芭蕾去殖民化。Masilo 的编舞使芭蕾舞本土化，通过本土镜头改变了当地和全球的实践。达达马西洛的吉赛尔体现了非洲哲学，例如祖先主义，以及性别流动性和互补性。它动员了诸如 signifyin(g)、喜剧抵抗、语码转换、战斗、呐喊以及批判性地重新使用茨瓦纳语和离散运动等技术，以传达一个独特的南非版本的欧洲芭蕾舞。这部作品超越了浪漫的爱情吉赛尔为了通过集中南非的认识和存在于世界的方式来传达一种非殖民化的爱。