Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance

Front Cover
Thomas DeFrantz
University of Wisconsin Press, Mar 4, 2002 - Performing Arts - 366 pages

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.

From inside the book

 

Contents

Christian Conversion and the Challenge of Dance
39
Dance and Identity Politics in American Negro
59
Dance Lessons from the 1940s
81
Copyright

9 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance
Thomas F. Defrantz
Limited preview - 2002
Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance
Thomas F. Defrantz
No preview available - 2002

Common terms and phrases

Afri African Ameri African American dance African Opera Afro-American artists Asadata Dafora audiences Ballet ballroom bebop Black Culture black dance blues aesthetic Center for Research choreographer chorus classical concert dance critics Dance Company Dance Group dance history dance instruction song dance practice Dance Theater Denby drums Flemyng gender girls Harlem Ibid included interview Jazz Dance Joe Nash Johnson Julie Robinson Julie Robinson Belafonte Katherine Dunham Lenox and Tilden lynching Mabel Martin McIntyre's modern dance move movement musicians Negro dancer Norton and Webb Olu Dara Pearl Primus performance Photographs and Prints play political popular Premiere Primus's Prints Division race racial rehearsed repertory reproduced with permission Research in Black rhythm Ring Shout Schomburg Center School singing slaves social dance solo Southland spiritual stage Stearns and Stearns steps style Thelma Hill Tilden Foundations tion tour tradition Twist University Press vaudeville Whitman Sisters women York City York Public Library-Astor

Bibliographic information

TitleDancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance
Volume 19 of Studies in Dance History, ISSN 1043-7592
EditorThomas DeFrantz
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Wisconsin Press, 2002
Original fromthe University of Michigan
DigitizedJan 20, 2010
ISBN0299173143, 9780299173142
Length366 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

Performing Arts / Dance / Folk
Performing Arts / Dance / General
Performing Arts / General
Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies
  
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