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Each contestant gave a short performance — decorating a cake, singing a self-composed hip-hop song and, in Ms. Iozumi’s case, demonstrating a karate kata with a partner.

The day violence struck Khargone, T. Raja Singh, a lawmaker from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, led a similar procession of Hindu devotees in southern Hyderabad city and belted out a self-composed song that made veiled references to the removal of Muslims from the country.

Creative robot Ai-da is performing a self-composed poetry response to Dante’s Divine Comedy to mark the 700th anniversary of the Italian poet’s death.

In Ms. Yiadom-Boakye’s ensemble of characters, however, there reigns a serenity, too self-composed to be ruffled by representation battles.

Bill Cosby, for example, is the main villain of the accountability chapter, and one of that chapter’s heroes is a stunningly self-composed young woman who shrugs off sexist verbal abuse on the subway.