The Pleasures of Primitivism

Abstract This chapter traces the emergence and legacy of Les Ballets Nègres, as queer Jamaican migrants Berto Pasuka and Richard Riley found the first Black-led concert dance company in Britain in 1946. Their choreography disrupts colonial narratives by blending Caribbean social dances, African diasporic themes, and queer performance to forge a radical, modernist aesthetic that resists nationalist containment. Through flamboyant, camp, and often grotesque roles, Pasuka queers the gaze, enacting blackness not as fixed identity but as unstable, migratory performance that traverses modernity and primitivism. The chapter critiques how British and West Indian critics often ignore the complexity of their performances, reducing them to racial fantasies or nationalist symbols, while the company actively embraces opacity, fabulation, and communal creation. Finally, the chapter reclaims Les Ballets Nègres’ oeuvre as a foundational expression of queer West Indian migrancy and diasporic performance, challenging conventional dance historiography and illuminating a richly layered Black aesthetic legacy.