Dancing many drums : excavations in African American dance / edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

DeFrantz, Thomas.

Series:

Studies in dance history (Unnumbered)

Studies in dance history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American dance--History.

African American dance.

African Americans--Social life and customs.

African Americans.

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 366 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, [2002]

Summary:

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."

Contents:

African American Dance: A Complex History / Thomas F. DeFrantz 3

Part 1. Theory

1. Christian Conversion and the Challenge of Dance / P. Sterling Stuckey 39

2. Dance and Identity Politics in American Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters, 1900-1935 / Nadine A. George 59

3. Awkward Moves: Dance Lessons from the 1940s / Marya Annette McQuirter 81

4. (Up) Staging the Primitive: Pearl Primus and "the Negro Problem" in American Dance / Richard C. Green 105

Part 2. Practice

5. African Dance in New York City / Marcia E. Heard, Mansa K. Mussa 143

6. From "Messin' Around" to "Funky Western Civilization": The Rise and Fall of Dance Instruction Songs / Sally Banes, John F. Szwed 169

7. "Moves on Top of Blues": Dianne McIntyre's Blues Aesthetic / Veta Goler 205

Part 3. History

8. Kykunkor, or the Witch Woman: An African Opera in America, 1934 / Maureen Needham 233

9. Between Two Eras: "Norton and Margot" in the Afro-American Entertainment World / Brenda Dixon Gottschild 267

10. Katherine Dunham's Southland: Protest in the Face of Repression / Constance Valis Hill 289

11. The New York Negro Ballet in Great Britain / Dawn Lille Horwitz 317.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0299173100

0299173143

OCLC:

46642218