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This chapter examines rediasporization as a gendered process. It interrogates the ways that African-Guyanese-Americans articulate, construct, and reject Guyanese gendered values through singing, wining (gyrations), and other ritual performances at Come to My Kwe-Kwe celebrations. While gendering is a multilayered process, this chapter specifically focuses on the ways that notions of “real man” and “good” or “proper woman” are negotiated and displayed in Come to My Kwe-Kwe rituals through performances that address domestication, economic providence, and sexuality broadly construed. The chapter also articulates how characteristic innovative performances at Come to My Kwe-Kwe highlight overt and subtle differences between the gender values of the primary African Diaspora in Guyana and those of the secondary diaspora in the United States. The chapter further explores the connections between gendered values in pre-colonial Africa, pre-emancipation Guyana, and the contemporary USA, as African-Guyanese-Americans navigate identity and belonging during processes of rediasporization.

The chapter introduces a discussion about what the term 'a real man' means to interlocutors, opening up a wider consideration of hegemonic masculinity and Chinese masculinities. The study diverges from the classic interpretation of Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity in one important respect. The term is usually associated with negative, toxic, sexist, oppressive male values and behaviours, but the version of hegemonic masculinity that has developed in China is identified as having an ethos that is exhibited in the social and family lives of men in diverse settings. The chapter also describes the research methodology and characteristics of the fieldwork site.

Sergei Prokofiev was one of a few composers who worked equally successfully in the fields of film music and art music. His scores for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible are as significant for the history of film music as are his operas and ballets for musical theater. He approached film projects with the same creative rigor as his stage and symphonic works. And so we must think of his film scores not as a separate enterprise but, rather, as one of the various theatrical and dramatic genres at which he tried his hand. While the operatic features of his music for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible have become widely recognized, Prokofiev’s other film scores can also be placed in a broader context of the composer’s output. The cross-connections between genres can be traced at different levels, from common themes and literary ideas and similar stylistic evolution, to shared compositional techniques and borrowings of musical material from one work to another.

This chapter explores Prokofiev’s processes, compositional strategies, and theatrical instinct as evident in his operatic works. Each of the eight operas discussed tells a different story about Prokofiev’s context, aesthetic, and compositional procedures; in each, he explores different musical, dramaturgical, and artistic possibilities. While the soundscapes of the earlier operas are different from those of his Soviet period, his musical voice remains distinctive. He was passionate about the stage and had much to say about opera in the twentieth century, but his innovative and radical ideas were often obscured by political and social contexts. Prokofiev’s operatic vision centered on characterization, visualization, and textual emancipation. His most significant contribution to the twentieth century’s operatic stage was dramatic realism, based on what he called “theatrical rhythm,” with his use of declamation to replace set pieces and ensembles.