부산대학교 도서관

A ritualistic approach to Ntozake Shange’s characteristic style and themes of her choreopoem enables the reader/audience to understand Shange’s theatrical stance in Afro-American theatre history. Shange has redefined American theatre to include African rituals and conventions through adopting and shaping uniquely Afro-American dramatic stuff such as flexibility of dramatic form and participatory theatre. Her female characters as well as male ones in spell #7 undergo personal and sometimes political search for wholeness through ritual stages. Shange structures spell #7 around the initiation and survival rituals of African-American female actress as well as male actors who struggle mightily to make their lives whole in spite of the forces that seek to negate their personhood and professionality. The ritualization of her drama differentiates her drama from the Western dramas on the levels of both themes and styles. That’s why her writing might be approached politically as well as aesthetically. (Chonbuk National University)