FUAIM Lecture - Emmanuela Wroth - 24/10/24, Ó Riada Hall, 11:00

30 Aug 2024

Happening On 24/10/2024

From Branchu to Baker: Tracing Innovative Diasporic Performance Practices Through Time and Space in Nineteenth-Century Paris  

Historically, the emergence of Black women performers in European circles tends to be located in the twentieth century, with the arrival in Paris of Joséphine Baker (1906–1975). This paper seeks to recover the established Parisian racialized and sexualized diasporic performance practices into which Baker inserted herself.

I focus specifically on the mixed-race singer Caroline Branchu (1780–1850), of Haitian heritage, who starred at the Opéra at the start of the nineteenth century; and the black Afro Cuban performer Maria Martinez (c.1826–c.1882) who made a name for herself at the Théâtre des Variétés in the mid-century. I investigate how Branchu negotiated her aural and visual racialization by fashioning herself as a quintessentially French performer and as a key proponent of the French operatic form, the ‘tragédie lyrique’, and the ‘urlo francese’ – the prevailing style at the Opéra. I similarly consider Martinez’s own performative agency in her physical and vocal racialization and sexualization, and how Martinez dubbed herself ‘La Malibran Noire’ – a racialized counterpart to the white, Spanish singer Maria Malibran (1808–1836). In my conclusion, I look beyond Branchu and Martinez to Miss La La (1858–c.1919), the bi-racial circus performer from Szczecin who starred at the Folies Bergère at the century’s end. Building on the racial dualism Martinez established between herself and the late Malibran, I consider how Miss La La and her white counterpart Kaira la Blanche (1864-1888) used their contrasting sexualized and racialized bodies to garner celebrity together, setting the scene at the Folies Bergère for Baker’s arrival shortly after. 

Bio: Emmanuela Wroth is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She specializes in nineteenth-century French music theatre history and celebrity, through the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Her new project, “Diasporic Divas: Racialized and Gendered Celebrity in Western Europe, 1715–1925”, recovers the overlooked careers of black women performers and Afrodiasporic performance practices in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western Europe and the Atlantic. Her first monograph, based on her PhD, is entitled “Courting Celebrity: Creating the Courtesan on the Popular Parisian Stage and Beyond, 1831–1859” (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Her latest article appeared in French Studies, and she has book chapters in A New History of Theatre in France (Cambridge University Press, 2024) and Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Previously, Emmanuela held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto and completed a Collaborative Doctoral Project at Durham University and the Bowes Museum. She was a 2021 finalist on the AHRC TV PhD scheme at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and has disseminated her research on podcasts, including ArtyParti. Emmanuela is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and teaches a variety of courses on music history, Francophone culture, and theatre.