Introduction: managing nationalism, crossing crocodiles, and staging ethnography -- Beyond ethnicity, beyond Ghana : staging and embodying African personality -- Dancing essences : sensational staging and the cosmopolitan politics of authentication -- Soldiers of culture : discipline, artistry, and alternative education -- Speak to the wind : staging the state and performing indirection -- "We are the originals" : a tale of two troupes and the birth of contemporary dance in Ghana -- Politics of personality : creativity, competition, and self-expression within a unitary matrix -- Conclusion: managing self, state, and nation.