A documentary film from 1969, stored in INA (French National Broadcasting Institute) archives, bears witness to its amazement before a group of Neg'marrons, traditional characters in the Cayenne Carnival known as “Blacks painted black”.  Do these “Blacks painted black” define themselves as black when Creole society, as an offshoot of colonialism, is marked by interbreeding and white blood ideology?  The Nég’marron character evokes a mirrored or feed-back otherness.  The image of the black man as painted by colonialist, separatist ideology in the nineteenth and twentieth century serves as a mask.  The image of the coarse black man takes on a grotesque aesthetic that forms part of Creole identity. 

Blodwenn Mauffret has a PhD in Theatrical Studies and teaches Information and Communication Sciences in cultural mediation and practice at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest – Bretagne Sud. She works with the  Laboratoire SeFeA (French theatre arts and texts on otherness) at the IRET (Institut en Recherche Théâtrale) belonging to Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and the CIRRAS (Centre International de Réflexion et de Recherche sur les Arts du Spectacle).

Listen to Blodwenn Mauffret’s presentation