Advertisement
The Enduring Legacy: Exploring African American Dance History and its Industry Impact
Author: Dr. Anika Nzinga, Professor of Dance History and African Diaspora Studies at Howard University, author of Rhythms of Resistance: Black Dance in the 20th Century.
Publisher: Dance Magazine, a leading publication in the dance world with a 100-year history of covering all aspects of dance, from ballet to hip-hop.
Editor: Ms. Isabella Rossi, Dance Magazine's Senior Editor with 15 years of experience covering dance history and cultural criticism, specializing in marginalized voices in the art form.
Keywords: African American dance history, Black dance, African dance influences, dance history, cultural impact, performance art, hip-hop dance, jazz dance, social dance, American dance history.
Introduction: Tracing the Roots of African American Dance History
African American dance history is a vibrant tapestry woven from threads of resilience, creativity, and cultural resistance. It's a story deeply intertwined with the history of the African diaspora, reflecting the struggles and triumphs of a people who expressed themselves through movement in the face of unimaginable adversity. Understanding this rich history is crucial not only for appreciating the artistry itself but also for grasping its profound implications for the broader dance industry. This article will explore key moments and figures within African American dance history, examining its ongoing influence on contemporary dance forms and the industry’s evolving relationship with its legacy.
From Africa to America: The Foundation of African American Dance History
The foundation of African American dance history lies in the rich and diverse dance traditions of Africa. Forced migration during the transatlantic slave trade brutally severed these connections, yet the spirit of African movement persisted. Enslaved Africans adapted and transformed their ancestral dances, blending them with elements of European and other cultural influences, creating new forms of expression that often served as coded communication, resistance, and communal celebration. Ring shouts, for example, evolved as a means of spiritual expression and community building under the oppressive conditions of slavery.
The Rise of Minstrel Shows and the Struggle for Authentic Representation
The 19th century saw the emergence of minstrel shows, a deeply problematic form of entertainment that caricatured Black people. While these performances often incorporated elements of African American dance, they did so in a way that perpetuated harmful stereotypes and denied Black artists agency and authorship. This period highlights a crucial aspect of African American dance history: the constant struggle against misrepresentation and the ongoing fight for authentic representation.
The Harlem Renaissance and the Birth of Modern Dance
The Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s) served as a pivotal moment in African American dance history. This cultural explosion fostered the development of new dance styles, showcasing the talents of choreographers and performers who challenged racial boundaries and celebrated Black identity. Katherine Dunham, a groundbreaking figure, incorporated elements of Caribbean and African dance into her choreography, paving the way for future generations of artists. Her work, along with that of other pioneers like Josephine Baker, contributed significantly to the development of modern dance as a whole.
Jazz Dance: A Syncopated Story of African American Dance History
Jazz dance, born from the vibrant rhythms and improvisational nature of jazz music, became a powerful vehicle for expressing the unique experiences and emotions of African Americans. Its evolution mirrored the complex social and political landscape, reflecting both joy and pain, resilience and struggle. Artists like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson mastered and helped define this dynamic style, leaving an indelible mark on African American dance history and the dance world at large.
The Civil Rights Movement and Dance as a Tool for Social Change
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s further shaped African American dance history. Dance became a powerful tool for social activism, used to express solidarity, challenge injustice, and mobilize communities. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founded in 1958, played a crucial role in this evolution, presenting works that explored themes of the Black experience with raw emotion and breathtaking artistry. Ailey's choreography, especially works like "Revelations," became iconic expressions of Black identity and spiritual resilience.
Hip-Hop's Explosive Impact on the Global Dance Landscape
The late 20th century witnessed the explosion of hip-hop culture, including its distinctive dance styles. Breakdancing, popping, locking, and other hip-hop forms emerged from the streets, reflecting the creativity and resourcefulness of African American communities. Hip-hop dance quickly transcended its origins, becoming a global phenomenon and profoundly impacting the dance industry, influencing fashion, music videos, and mainstream choreography. Its influence on contemporary dance is undeniable, proving its enduring power and impact on African American dance history.
The Contemporary Landscape: Celebrating Diversity and Confronting Systemic Issues
Today, African American dance history continues to evolve. While significant progress has been made in terms of representation and inclusion, systemic challenges remain. The dance industry still faces issues of racial bias, unequal opportunities, and a lack of diverse voices in leadership positions. The ongoing work to dismantle these systems is essential for creating a truly equitable and representative dance world that fully acknowledges and celebrates the rich contributions of African American artists.
Conclusion: A Legacy of Resilience and Innovation
The history of African American dance is one of immense creativity, resilience, and cultural impact. From the ancestral traditions of Africa to the global phenomenon of hip-hop, Black dancers and choreographers have shaped the landscape of dance throughout history. Understanding and celebrating this rich legacy is not just a matter of historical accuracy; it's essential for ensuring a more equitable and vibrant future for the dance world. The ongoing struggle for representation and recognition highlights the vital need to continue fostering opportunities for Black artists and to actively challenge systemic biases that continue to impede their progress. The power of African American dance history lies not only in its artistry but also in its unwavering testament to the human spirit’s ability to create beauty and meaning even in the face of adversity.
FAQs
1. What are some key figures in African American dance history? Katherine Dunham, Josephine Baker, Alvin Ailey, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and many more contemporary artists.
2. How did African dance traditions influence American dance forms? African rhythms, movement vocabulary, and spiritual practices heavily influenced styles like jazz, tap, and hip-hop.
3. What role did dance play in the Civil Rights Movement? Dance became a powerful tool for social protest, community organizing, and expressing Black identity and resilience.
4. How has hip-hop dance impacted the global dance landscape? It has revolutionized the industry, influencing mainstream choreography, fashion, and music videos worldwide.
5. What are some ongoing challenges facing Black dancers in the industry? Racial bias, unequal opportunities, and lack of representation in leadership positions.
6. How can we better support and celebrate African American dance artists? By providing increased funding, mentorship, and showcasing their work on major platforms.
7. What are some resources for learning more about African American dance history? Books, documentaries, museums, university archives, and online resources.
8. What is the significance of "Revelations" by Alvin Ailey? It is an iconic work that explores the Black experience through movement and spirituality.
9. How can the dance industry address systemic inequalities? By implementing diverse hiring practices, creating mentorship programs, and promoting the work of Black artists.
Related Articles:
1. Katherine Dunham and the Caribbean Influence on Modern Dance: Explores Dunham's innovative choreography and its roots in Caribbean and African dance traditions.
2. The Harlem Renaissance: A Cultural Explosion in Dance and Music: Discusses the flourishing of African American artistic expression during the 1920s and 30s.
3. Alvin Ailey and the Legacy of "Revelations": A deep dive into Ailey's iconic work and its lasting impact on the dance world.
4. The Evolution of Jazz Dance: From Minstrel Shows to Broadway: Traces the development of jazz dance and its complex relationship with racial representation.
5. Breaking Barriers: Black Women in Dance History: Focuses on the achievements and challenges faced by Black female dancers.
6. The Birth of Hip-Hop Dance: From the Streets to the Global Stage: Examines the origins and evolution of hip-hop dance styles.
7. African Rhythms and Their Influence on American Music and Dance: Explores the cross-cultural exchange of musical and dance traditions.
8. Contemporary African American Choreographers Shaping the Future of Dance: Showcases the work of prominent contemporary Black choreographers.
9. Dance as Activism: The Role of African American Dance in Social Change Movements: Examines how dance has been used as a tool for social and political activism.
| african american dance history: Dancing Many Drums Thomas F. Defrantz, 2002-04-01 Few will dispute the profound influence that African American music and movement has had in American and world culture. Dancing Many Drums explores that influence through a groundbreaking collection of essays on African American dance history, theory, and practice. In so doing, it reevaluates black and African American as both racial and dance categories. Abundantly illustrated, the volume includes images of a wide variety of dance forms and performers, from ring shouts, vaudeville, and social dances to professional dance companies and Hollywood movie dancing. Bringing together issues of race, gender, politics, history, and dance, Dancing Many Drums ranges widely, including discussions of dance instruction songs, the blues aesthetic, and Katherine Dunham’s controversial ballet about lynching, Southland. In addition, there are two photo essays: the first on African dance in New York by noted dance photographer Mansa Mussa, and another on the 1934 African opera, Kykunkor, or the Witch Woman. |
| african american dance history: African American Dance Barbara S. Glass, 2012-05-10 Africans brought as slaves to North America arrived without possessions, but not without culture. The fascinating elements of African life manifested themselves richly in the New World, and among the most lasting and influential of these was the art of African dance. This generously illustrated history follows the dynamics of African dance forms throughout each generation. Early chapters discuss the African continent and the heritage of African American dance; the discrimination and marginalization of African Americans and the fortitude with which their dance forms survived; and black dance in the slavery era and later in the nineteenth century. Remaining chapters outline ten major characteristics that have consistently marked African American dance, and describe the various styles of black vernacular dance that became popular in America. The book concludes with a discussion of African dance at the end of the twentieth century and its important role in the flowering of African American arts. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here. |
| african american dance history: African-American Concert Dance John O. Perpener, 2001 Provides biographical and historical information on a group of African-American artists who worked during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s to legitimize dance of the African diaspora as a serious art form. |
| african american dance history: Steppin' on the Blues Jacqui Malone, 1996 Former dancer Jacqui Malone throws a fresh spotlight on the cultural history of black dance, the Africanisms that have influenced it, and the significant role that vocal harmony groups, black college and university marching bands, and black sorority and fraternity stepping teams have played in the evolution of dance in African American life. |
| african american dance history: African Dance Kariamu Welsh-Asante, 2010 The ancient tradition of African dance has influenced dance styles all over the world. It is used to commemorate many annual ceremonies and activities, such as rites of passage and the harvest, and it is also an important form of recreation, religious expression, and storytelling. In African Dance, Second Edition, the varied cultures of Africa and their respective dances are explored, along with the effects that colonialism had on the art form. |
| african american dance history: Jookin' Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, 2010-07-02 The first analysis of the development of the jook and other dance arenas in African-American culture. |
| african american dance history: What Makes That Black? Luana, 2016 We all can name some of the Africanist aesthetic-structures that fuel African American and American art ... Syncopation, Improvisation, Call and Response, Cool, Polyrhythm, or Innovation as an ambition- But there are many, many more. What Makes That Black? The African-American Aesthetic identifies and defines seventy-four elements of the aesthetic through text and illustration. Using the magnificent camerawork of R.J. Muna, Sharen Bradford, Jae Man Joo, Rachel Neville, James Barry Knox, and more- as they point their cameras at Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and jazz artists such as Cécile McLorin Salvant and Wynton Marsalis- a specific artistic consciousness or sensibility visually unfolds. Luana even joins the camera crew as she shoots Oakland Street Graffiti. |
| african american dance history: Embodying Liberation Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, Alison D. Goeller, 2001 A collection of essays concerning the black body in American dance, EmBODYing Liberation serves as an important contribution to the growing field of scholarship in African American dance, in particular the strategies used by individual artists to contest and liberate racialized stagings of the black body. The collection features special essays by Thomas DeFrantz and Brenda Dixon Gottschild, as well as an interview with Isaac Julien. |
| african american dance history: Dancing Revelations Thomas DeFrantz, 2004 Chronicles the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre's journey from small modern dance company to one of the premier institutions of African-American culture. This book charts the troupe's rise to national and international renown, and contextualizes its progress within the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights struggles of the late 20th century. |
| african american dance history: Black Dance in America James Haskins, 1990 Surveys the history of black dance in America, from its beginnings with the ritual dances of African slaves, through tap and modern dance to break dancing. Includes brief biographies of influential dancers and companies. |
| african american dance history: Night's Dancer Yaël Tamar Lewin, 2015-08-14 The biography of the first African-American prima ballerina Winner of the The Marfield Prize / National Award for Arts Writing (2011) Dancer Janet Collins, born in New Orleans in 1917 and raised in Los Angeles, soared high over the color line as the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. Night's Dancer chronicles the life of this extraordinary and elusive woman, who became a unique concert dance soloist as well as a black trailblazer in the white world of classical ballet. During her career, Collins endured an era in which racial bias prevailed, and subsequently prevented her from appearing in the South. Nonetheless, her brilliant performances transformed the way black dancers were viewed in ballet. The book begins with an unfinished memoir written by Collins in which she gives a captivating account of her childhood and young adult years, including her rejection by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Dance scholar Yaël Tamar Lewin then picks up the thread of Collins's story. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with Collins and her family, friends, and colleagues to explore Collins's development as a dancer, choreographer, and painter, Lewin gives us a profoundly moving portrait of an artist of indomitable spirit. |
| african american dance history: National Rhythms, African Roots John Charles Chasteen, 2004 John Chasteen examines the history behind sexually suggestive dances (salsa, samba, and tango) that brought people of different social classes and races together in Latin America. |
| african american dance history: Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics Phil Jamison, 2015-07-15 In Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, old-time musician and flatfoot dancer Philip Jamison journeys into the past and surveys the present to tell the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. These distinctive folk dances, Jamison argues, are not the unaltered jigs and reels brought by early British settlers, but hybrids that developed over time by adopting and incorporating elements from other popular forms. He traces the forms from their European, African American, and Native American roots to the modern day. On the way he explores the powerful influence of black culture, showing how practices such as calling dances as well as specific kinds of steps combined with white European forms to create distinctly American dances. From cakewalks to clogging, and from the Shoo-fly Swing to the Virginia Reel, Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics reinterprets an essential aspect of Appalachian culture. |
| african american dance history: Rooted Jazz Dance Lindsay Guarino, Carlos R.A. Jones, Wendy Oliver, 2022-02-01 National Dance Education Organization Ruth Lovell Murray Book Award UNCG | Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance Education An African American art form, jazz dance has an inaccurate historical narrative that often sets Euro-American aesthetics and values at the inception of the jazz dance genealogy. The roots were systemically erased and remain widely marginalized and untaught, and the devaluation of its Africanist origins and lineage has largely gone unchallenged. Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture. Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots. These chapters offer strategies for teaching rooted jazz dance, examples for changing dance curricula, and artist perspectives on choreographing and performing jazz. Above all, they emphasize the importance of centering Africanist and African American principles, aesthetics, and values. Arguing that the history of jazz dance is closely tied to the history of racism in the United States, these essays challenge a century of misappropriation and lean into difficult conversations of reparations for jazz dance. This volume overcomes a major roadblock to racial justice in the dance field by amplifying the people and culture responsible for the jazz language. Contributors: LaTasha Barnes | Lindsay Guarino | Natasha Powell | Carlos R.A. Jones | Rubim de Toledo | Kim Fuller | Wendy Oliver | Joanne Baker | Karen Clemente | Vicki Adams Willis | Julie Kerr-Berry | Pat Taylor | Cory Bowles | Melanie George | Paula J Peters | Patricia Cohen | Brandi Coleman | Kimberley Cooper | Monique Marie Haley | Jamie Freeman Cormack | Adrienne Hawkins | Karen Hubbard | Lynnette Young Overby | Jessie Metcalf McCullough | E. Moncell Durden Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. |
| african american dance history: Dance We Do Ntozake Shange, 2020-10-13 In her first posthumous work, the revered poet crafts a personal history of Black dance and captures the careers of legendary dancers along with her own rhythmic beginnings. Many learned of Ntozake Shange’s ability to blend movement with words when her acclaimed choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf made its way to Broadway in 1976, eventually winning an Obie Award the following year. But before she found fame as a writer, poet, performer, dancer, and storyteller, she was an untrained student who found her footing in others’ classrooms. Dance We Do is a tribute to those who taught her and her passion for rhythm, movement, and dance. After 20 years of research, writing, and devotion, Ntozake Shange tells her history of Black dance through a series of portraits of the dancers who trained her, moved with her, and inspired her to share the power of the Black body with her audience. Shange celebrates and honors the contributions of the often unrecognized pioneers who continued the path Katherine Dunham paved through the twentieth century. Dance We Do features a stunning photo insert along with personal interviews with Mickey Davidson, Halifu Osumare, Camille Brown, and Dianne McIntyre. In what is now one of her final works, Ntozake Shange welcomes the reader into the world she loved best. |
| african american dance history: Survey of African American Dance Vikki Dale-Baltimore, 2018 |
| african american dance history: America Dancing Megan Pugh, 2015-01-01 The history of American dance reflects the nation's tangled culture. Dancers from wildly different backgrounds watched, imitated, and stole from one another. Audiences everywhere embraced the result as deeply American. Chronicling dance from the minstrel stage to the music video, Megan Pugh shows how freedom--that nebulous, contested American ideal--emerged as a genre-defining aesthetic. Ballerinas mingled with slumming thrill-seekers, and hoedowns showed up on elite opera-house stages. Steps invented by slaves captivated the British royalty and the Parisian avant-garde. Dances were better boundary crossers than their dancers, however, and the racism and class conflicts that haunt everyday life shadow American dance as well. Center stage in America Dancing is a cast of performers who slide, glide, stomp, and swing their way through history. At the nadir of U.S. race relations, cakewalkers embraced the rhythms of black America. On the heels of the Harlem Renaissance, Bill Robinson tap-danced to stardom. At the height of the Great Depression, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers unified highbrow and popular art. In the midst of 1940s patriotism, Agnes de Mille brought jazz and square dance to ballet, then took it all to Broadway. In the decades to come, the choreographer Paul Taylor turned pedestrian movements into modern masterpiecds, and Michael Jackson moonwalked his way to otherworldly stardom. These artists both celebrated and criticized the country, all while inspiring others to get moving. For it is partly by pretending to be other people, Pugh argues, that Americans discover themselves ... America Dancing demonstrates the centrality of dance in American art, life, and identity, taking us to watershed moments when the nation worked out a sense of itself through public movement--Publisher's description. |
| african american dance history: Black Ballerinas Misty Copeland, 2021-11-02 From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland comes an illustrated nonfiction collection celebrating dancers of color who have influenced her on and off the stage. As a young girl living in a motel with her mother and her five siblings, Misty Copeland didn’t have a lot of exposure to ballet or prominent dancers. She was sixteen when she saw a black ballerina on a magazine cover for the first time. The experience emboldened Misty and told her that she wasn’t alone—and her dream wasn’t impossible. In the years since, Misty has only learned more about the trailblazing women who made her own success possible by pushing back against repression and racism with their talent and tenacity. Misty brings these women’s stories to a new generation of readers and gives them the recognition they deserve. With an introduction from Misty about the legacy these women have had on dance and on her career itself, this book delves into the lives and careers of women of color who fundamentally changed the landscape of American ballet from the early 20th century to today. |
| african american dance history: Ring Shout, Wheel About Katrina Dyonne Thompson, 2014-01-30 In this ambitious project, historian Katrina Thompson examines the conceptualization and staging of race through the performance, sometimes coerced, of black dance from the slave ship to the minstrel stage. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Thompson explicates how black musical performance was used by white Europeans and Americans to justify enslavement, perpetuate the existing racial hierarchy, and mask the brutality of the domestic slave trade. Whether on slave ships, at the auction block, or on plantations, whites often used coerced performances to oppress and demean the enslaved. As Thompson shows, however, blacks' backstage use of musical performance often served quite a different purpose. Through creolization and other means, enslaved people preserved some native musical and dance traditions and invented or adopted new traditions that built community and even aided rebellion. Thompson shows how these traditions evolved into nineteenth-century minstrelsy and, ultimately, raises the question of whether today's mass media performances and depictions of African Americans are so very far removed from their troublesome roots. |
| african american dance history: Urban Bush Women Nadine George-Graves, 2010-07-08 The author's long-term engagement with the company has given her unprecedented access to Urban Bush Women. This Clearly contributes to her in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the company and of the choreographic processes that undergird Urban Bush Women Concert Pieces.---Sarah Davies Cordova, author of Paris Dances: Textual Choreographies in the Ninettenth-Century French Novel -- |
| african american dance history: The Silent Shore Charles L. Chavis Jr., 2022-01-11 The definitive account of the lynching of twenty-three-year-old Matthew Williams in Maryland, the subsequent investigation, and the legacy of modern-day lynchings. On December 4, 1931, a mob of white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His gruesome murder was part of a wave of silent white terrorism in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which exposed Black laborers to white rage in response to economic anxieties. For nearly a century, the lynching of Matthew Williams has lived in the shadows of the more well-known incidents of racial terror in the deep South, haunting both the Eastern Shore and the state of Maryland as a whole. In The Silent Shore, author Charles L. Chavis Jr. draws on his discovery of previously unreleased investigative documents to meticulously reconstruct the full story of one of the last lynchings in Maryland. Bringing the painful truth of anti-Black violence to light, Chavis breaks the silence that surrounded Williams's death. Though Maryland lacked the notoriety for racial violence of Alabama or Mississippi, he writes, it nonetheless was the site of at least 40 spectacle lynchings after the abolition of slavery in 1864. Families of lynching victims rarely obtained any form of actual justice, but Williams's death would have a curious afterlife: Maryland's politically ambitious governor Albert C. Ritchie would, in an attempt to position himself as a viable challenger to FDR, become one of the first governors in the United States to investigate the lynching death of a Black person. Ritchie tasked Patsy Johnson, a member of the Pinkerton detective agency and a former prizefighter, with going undercover in Salisbury and infiltrating the mob that murdered Williams. Johnson would eventually befriend a young local who admitted to participating in the lynching and who also named several local law enforcement officers as ringleaders. Despite this, a grand jury, after hearing 124 witness statements, declined to indict the perpetrators. But this denial of justice galvanized Governor Ritchie's Interracial Commission, which would become one of the pioneering forces in the early civil rights movement in Maryland. Complicating historical narratives associated with the history of lynching in the city of Salisbury, The Silent Shore explores the immediate and lingering effect of Williams's death on the politics of racism in the United States, the Black community in Salisbury, the broader Eastern Shore, the state of Maryland, and the legacy of modern-day lynchings. |
| african american dance history: Modern Dance, Negro Dance Susan Manning, 2004 Two traditionally divided strains of American dance, Modern Dance and Negro Dance, are linked through photographs, reviews, film, and oral history, resulting in a unique view of the history of American dance. |
| african american dance history: Black Dance in London, 1730-1850 Rodreguez King-Dorset, 2014-11-26 The survival of African cultural traditions in the New World has long been a subject of academic study and controversy, particularly traditions of dance, music, and song. Yet the dance culture of blacks in London, where a growing black community carried on the newly creolized dance traditions of their Caribbean ancestors, has been largely neglected. This study begins by examining the importance of dance in African culture and analyzing how African dance took root in the Caribbean, even as slaves learned and adapted European dance forms. It then looks at how these dance traditions were transplanted and transformed once again, this time in mid-eighteenth century London. Finally it analyzes how the London black community used the quadrille and other dances to establish a unified self-identity, to reinforce their group dynamic, and to critique the oppressive white society in which they found themselves. |
| african american dance history: History Dances Ofosuwa M. Abiola, 2018-11-16 The field of history is founded on the interrogation of written documents from the past. However, culture is the center of life in Africa. As a result, in the past – and to a degree in the present – the process for documenting events in Africa was not written, it was performed. History Dances: Chronicling the History of Traditional Mandinka Dance argues that a wealth of information is housed within traditional Mandinka dance and, consequently, the dances can be used as an African-derived primary source for writing African history. Ofosuwa M. Abiola highlights the overall value of studying Mandinka dance history specifically, and African dance history generally, as well as addressing the issue of scarcity with regard to primary sources for writing African history. History Dances proves to be a vital read for both undergraduate students and scholars in the fields of dance history, African history, performance studies, and cultural anthropology. |
| african american dance history: Kaiso! Katherine Dunham, 2005 This volume is a collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, the African American dancer, anthropologist and social activist. It includes articles, her essays on dance and anthropology and chapters from her volume of memoirs, 'Minefields'. |
| african american dance history: African American History For Dummies Ronda Racha Penrice, 2011-05-04 Understand the historical and cultural contributions of African Americans Get to know the people, places, and events that shaped the African American experience Want to better understand black history? This comprehensive, straight-forward guide traces the African American journey, from Africa and the slave trade through the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the new millennium. You'll be an eyewitness to the pivotal events that impacted America's past, present, and future - and meet the inspiring leaders who struggled to bring about change. How Africans came to America Black life before - and after - Civil Rights How slaves fought to be free The evolution of African American culture Great accomplishments by black citizens What it means to be black in America today |
| african american dance history: An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa Alexander Falconbridge, 1788 |
| african american dance history: Black Dance Lynne Fauley Emery, 1989-09 The contribution of Black Americans to American culture has been widely recognized. Black dance - from its roots in Africa through Broadway, Hollywood, and the serious dance stage today - has been a rich ingredient in our cultural life. This book traces Black dance from the Caribean, through Southern Plantations, the North, Minstrelsy, Music Hall, to the concert dance of today. Memorable portraits are given of Bill Robinson, Alvin Ailey, Pearl Primus, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and many others. The new edition has been updated, and includes a chapter on Black dance during the last 15 years. (4e de couverture). |
| african american dance history: Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake Julie Malnig, 2023-01-10 This dynamic collection documents the rich and varied history of social dance and the multiple styles it has generated, while drawing on some of the most current forms of critical and theoretical inquiry. The essays cover different historical periods and styles; encompass regional influences from North and South America, Britain, Europe, and Africa; and emphasize a variety of methodological approaches, including ethnography, anthropology, gender studies, and critical race theory. While social dance is defined primarily as dance performed by the public in ballrooms, clubs, dance halls, and other meeting spots, contributors also examine social dance’s symbiotic relationship with popular, theatrical stage dance forms. Contributors are Elizabeth Aldrich, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Yvonne Daniel, Sherril Dodds, Lisa Doolittle, David F. García, Nadine George-Graves, Jurretta Jordan Heckscher, Constance Valis Hill, Karen W. Hubbard, Tim Lawrence, Julie Malnig, Carol Martin, Juliet McMains, Terry Monaghan, Halifu Osumare, Sally R. Sommer, May Gwin Waggoner, Tim Wall, and Christina Zanfagna. |
| african american dance history: Hot Feet and Social Change Kariamu Welsh, Esailama Diouf, Yvonne Daniel, 2019-12-23 The popularity and profile of African dance have exploded across the African diaspora in the last fifty years. Hot Feet and Social Change presents traditionalists, neo-traditionalists, and contemporary artists, teachers, and scholars telling some of the thousands of stories lived and learned by people in the field. Concentrating on eight major cities in the United States, the essays challenges myths about African dance while demonstrating its power to awaken identity, self-worth, and community respect. These voices of experience share personal accounts of living African traditions, their first encounters with and ultimate embrace of dance, and what teaching African-based dance has meant to them and their communities. Throughout, the editors alert readers to established and ongoing research, and provide links to critical contributions by African and Caribbean dance experts. Contributors: Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Abby Carlozzo, Steven Cornelius, Yvonne Daniel, Charles “Chuck” Davis, Esailama G. A. Diouf, Indira Etwaroo, Habib Iddrisu, Julie B. Johnson, C. Kemal Nance, Halifu Osumare, Amaniyea Payne, William Serrano-Franklin, and Kariamu Welsh |
| african american dance history: Jazz Dance Marshall Stearns, Jean Stearns, 1994-03-22 The phrase jazz dance has a special meaning for professionals who dance to jazz music (they use it to describe non-tap body movement); and another meaning for studios coast to coast teaching 'Modern Jazz Dance' (a blend of Euro-American styles that owes little to jazz and less to jazz rhythms). However, we are dealing here with what may eventually be referred to as jazz dance, and we could not think of a more suitable title. The characteristic that distinguishes American vernacular dance--as does jazz music--is swing, which can be heard, felt, and seen, but defined only with great difficulty. . . . --from the Introduction |
| african american dance history: Black Dance Edward Thorpe, 1990 From its origins in Africa to its influence on ballet and modern dance, Thorpe presents the most comprehensive history of black dance available today. 75 photographs. |
| african american dance history: Drumbeat in Our Feet Patricia A. Keeler, Júlio T. Leitão, 2014-04-15 Informative passages and lyrical verse explore the history and rhythmic qualities of traditional African dance as performed long ago and today. Note about Harlem-based African dance troupe Batoto Yetu, photographs, and map in backmatter--Provided by publisher. |
| african american dance history: Life in Motion Misty Copeland, Charisse Jones, 2014-03-04 Profiles the life and career of the professional ballerina, covering from when she began dance classes at age thirteen in an after-school community center through becoming the only African American soloist dancing with the American Ballet Theatre. |
| african american dance history: Dancing Revelations : Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture Thomas F. DeFrantz Associate Professor of Theater Arts MIT, 2004-01-15 In the early 1960s, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was a small, multi-racial company of dancers that performed the works of its founding choreographer and other emerging artists. By the late 1960s, the company had become a well-known African American artistic group closely tied to the Civil Rights struggle. In Dancing Revelations, Thomas DeFrantz chronicles the troupe's journey from a small modern dance company to one of the premier institutions of African American culture. He not only charts this rise to national and international renown, but also contextualizes this progress within the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights struggles of the late 20th century. DeFrantz examines the most celebrated Ailey dances, including Revelations, drawing on video recordings of Ailey's dances, published interviews, oral histories, and his own interviews with former Ailey company dancers. Through vivid descriptions and beautiful illustrations, DeFrantz reveals the relationship between Ailey's works and African American culture as a whole. He illuminates the dual achievement of Ailey as an artist and as an arts activist committed to developing an African American presence in dance. He also addresses concerns about how dance performance is documented, including issues around spectatorship and the display of sexuality, the relationship of Ailey's dances to civil rights activism, and the establishment and maintenance of a successful, large-scale Black Arts institution. Throughout Dancing Revelations, DeFrantz illustrates how Ailey combined elements of African dance with motifs adapted from blues, jazz, and Broadway to choreograph his dances. By re-interpreting these tropes of black culture in his original and well-received dances, DeFrantz argues that Ailey played a significant role in defining the African American cultural canon in the twentieth century. As the first book to examine the cultural sources and cultural impact of Ailey's work, Dancing Revelations is an important contribution to modern dance history and criticism as well as African-American studies. |
| african american dance history: Tap Dancing America Constance Valis Hill, 2014-11-12 Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap -- the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form. Writing with all the verve and grace of tap itself, Constance Valis Hill offers a sweeping narrative, filling a major gap in American dance history and placing tap firmly center stage. |
| african american dance history: Dancing from Past to Present Theresa Jill Buckland, 2007-03-19 This groundbreaking collection combines ethnographic and historic strategies to reveal how dance plays crucial cultural roles in various regions of the world, including Tonga, Java, Bosnia-Herzegovina, New Mexico, India, Korea, Macedonia, and England. The essays find a balance between past and present and examine how dance and bodily practices are core identity and cultural creators. Reaching beyond the typically Eurocentric view of dance, Dancing from Past to Present opens a world of debate over the role dance plays in forming and expressing cultural identities around the world. |
| african american dance history: The Black Dancing Body B. Gottschild, 2016-04-30 What is the essence of black dance in America? To answer that question, Brenda Dixon Gottschild maps an unorthodox 'geography', the geography of the black dancing body, to show the central place black dance has in American culture. From the feet to the butt, to hair to skin/face, and beyond to the soul/spirit, Brenda Dixon Gottschild talks to some of the greatest choreographers of our day including Garth Fagan, Francesca Harper, Meredith Monk, Brenda Buffalino, Doug Elkins, Ralph Lemon, Fernando Bujones, Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, Jawole Zollar, Bebe Miller, Sean Curran and Shelly Washington to look at the evolution of black dance and it's importance to American culture. This is a groundbreaking piece of work by one of the foremost African-American dance critics of our day. |
| african american dance history: Revelations Alvin Ailey, A. Peter Bailey, 1995 World-class choreographer Alvin Ailey was a pioneer in the world of dance. Now, the intensely private man opens up to tell his own story in his own words. It is a revelation that will astound even those who think they knew Alvin Ailey--the man who forever changed the face and the rhythm of the world of dance. photographs. |
| african american dance history: Dance Theatre of Harlem Judy Tyrus, Paul Novosel, 2021-10-26 2021 NAACP Image Award Nominee This definitive history is a celebration of the first African-American ballet company, from its 1960s origins in a Harlem basement, to the performances, community engagement, and education message of empowerment through the arts for all which the Company continues to carry forward today. Illustrated with hundreds of never before seen photos from the founding during the Civil Rights Movement by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook through to today, this visual history tells the story that fueled Dance Theatre of Harlem’s growth into one of the most influential and revolutionary American ballet companies of the last five decades. With exclusive backstage stories from its legendary dancers and staff, and unprecedented access to its archives, Dance Theatre of Harlem is a striking chronicle of the company's amazing history, its fascinating daily workings, and the visionaries who made its legacy. Here you’ll discover how the company’s founders—African-American maestro Arthur Mitchell of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and Nordic-American Karel Shook of The Dutch National Ballet--created timeless works that challenged Eurocentric mainstream ballet head-on—and used new techniques to examine ongoing issues of power, beauty, myth, and the ever-changing definition of art itself. Gaining prominence in the 1970s and 80s with a succession of triumphs—including its spectacular season at the Metropolitan Opera House—the company also gained fans and supporters that included Nelson Mandela, Stevie Wonder, Cicely Tyson, Misty Copeland, Jessye Norman, and six American presidents. Dance Theatre of Harlem details this momentous era as well as the company's difficult years, its impressive recovery as it partnered with new media's most brilliant creators—and, in the wake of its 50th anniversary, amid a global pandemic, its evolution into a worldwide virtual performance space. Alive with stunning photographs, including many from the legendary Marbeth, this incomparable book is a must-have for any lover of dance, art, culture, or history. |
Africa - Wikipedia
African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa. Africa is highly biodiverse; [17] it is the continent with the largest number of …
Africa | History, People, Countries, Regions, Map, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · African regions are treated under the titles Central Africa, eastern Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and western Africa; these articles also contain the principal treatment …
Map of Africa | List of African Countries Alphabetically - World Maps
Africa is the second largest and most populous continent in the world after Asia. The area of Africa without islands is 11.3 million square miles (29.2 million sq km), with islands - about 11.7 million …
The 54 Countries in Africa in Alphabetical Order
May 14, 2025 · Here is the alphabetical list of the African country names with their capitals. We have also included the countries’ regions, the international standard for country codes (ISO …
Africa - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars , …
Africa: Countries and Sub-Saharan Africa - HISTORY
African History Africa is a large and diverse continent that extends from South Africa northward to the Mediterranean Sea. The continent makes up one-fifth of the total land surface of Earth.
Africa Map: Regions, Geography, Facts & Figures | Infoplease
What Are the Big 3 African Countries? Three of the largest and most influential countries in Africa are Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with a …
Africa - New World Encyclopedia
Since the end of colonial status, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics …
Africa Map / Map of Africa - Worldatlas.com
Africa, the planet's 2nd largest continent and the second most-populous continent (after Asia) includes (54) individual countries, and Western Sahara, a member state of the African Union …
Africa: Human Geography - Education
Jun 4, 2025 · Cultural Geography Historic Cultures The African continent has a unique place in human history. Widely believed to be the “cradle of humankind,” Africa is the only continent …
Africa - Wikipedia
African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa. Africa is highly biodiverse; [17] it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it …
Africa | History, People, Countries, Regions, Map, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · African regions are treated under the titles Central Africa, eastern Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and western Africa; these articles also contain the principal treatment of African historical and cultural …
Map of Africa | List of African Countries Alphabetically - World M…
Africa is the second largest and most populous continent in the world after Asia. The area of Africa without islands is 11.3 million square miles (29.2 million sq km), with islands - about 11.7 million square miles (30.3 million sq …
The 54 Countries in Africa in Alphabetical Order
May 14, 2025 · Here is the alphabetical list of the African country names with their capitals. We have also included the countries’ regions, the international standard for country codes (ISO 3166) and continents, as they may …
Africa - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars , as well as the growth of modern …
