APPENDIX DANCE PRACTITIONERS MENTIONED IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE IN TEXT PART I Rod Rodgers (deceased) maintained a dance company based in New York that was first formed in 1967 and continues to operate under the direction of Kim Grier. Eleo Pomare is an important American choreographer and artistic director whose work in the 1960s era was considered politically radical. Sounds in Motion, the name of the modern dance ensemble founded by Dianne McIn- tyre, captures the essence of this choreographer’s interest in merging live (black) musics (jazz, blues, gospel) with her Africanist-rooted movement innovations. In the first quarter of the twentieth century master teacher Enrico Cecchetti (deceased) developed a ballet technique that has since been utilized and disseminated by many American dance teachers to both ballet and modern dancers. A legendary teacher/choreographer of a white jazz dance style, Matt Mattox performed in Broadway musicals and Hollywood films, including Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Ulysses Dove (deceased) was a well-known African American choreographer who had danced in both the Merce Cunningham and Alvin Ailey companies. His dancing career is a good example of the scope and versatility of the black dancing body. Sevilla Fort (deceased) was a highly respected teacher and dancer who came through the ranks of the Katherine Dunham Company and school. John Bubbles (deceased), tap dance innovator, is credited with inventing a genre known as rhythm tap. As a principal dancer with DTH, Stephanie Dabney danced a stunning version of Firebird. Pearl Primus (deceased), dancer and dance anthropologist, was probably the first (African) American to choreograph authentic African dance for the concert stage. Talley Beatty (deceased) was a dancer/choreographer who danced with the early Katherine Dunham Company. His choreographies are in the repertory of several “black” dance companies, including Philadanco, the Ailey ensemble, and the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. APPENDIX 303 Both Loretta Abbott and Alastair Butler danced with the Alvin Ailey ensemble. Donald Byrd’s choreography is distinguished by a near acrobatic technical acuity, daring, and speed. He disbanded his company in 2002 to become artistic director of Seat- tle’s Spectrum Dance Theater. Reggie Wilson is artistic director of the Fist and Heel Performance Group whose work reflects his Africanist heritage in movement, rhythmic grounding, and vocal and mu- sical accompaniment. Philadelphia-based choreographer Kariamu Asante is the founder of Umfundalai, a neo-African concert dance technique, and artistic director of Kariamu and Dancers. Renowned swing dancer George “Shorty” Snowden (deceased) purportedly in- vented the Lindy Hop. A swing dance step was named after him. Earl “Snake Hips” Tucker (deceased), another legendary swing-era dancer, spent much of his career as a soloist at the Cotton Club and had a dance variation named after him. Games, one of Donald McKayle’s signature works, was choreographed in 1951 and is in the repertory of several “black dance” companies. McKayle and Alvin Ailey are key fig- ures in the second generation of choreographers who brought themes of African American life to the concert stage. (Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus are the major presences of the first generation.) Blondell Cummings, former member of Meredith Monk’s ensemble, The House, is currently a freelance artist/educator. Carolyn Adams performed for many years as the sole African American dancer with the Paul Taylor Company. She and Meredith Monk were dance majors at Sarah Lawrence College at the same time. Stephen Petronio, former member of the Trisha Brown Company, is the artistic di- rector of his postmodern dance ensemble. David Dorfman Dance performs in a playful, athletic postmodern style and occasion- ally integrates non-professionals (athletes, community members) in company concerts. UCLA-based David Rousseve’s work integrates postmodern principles with his African American cultural heritage. He was founder and artistic director of david rous- seve\REALITY. Sylvie Guillem is a contemporary French ballerina. Internationally famous soloist Erik Bruhn, originally of the royal Danish Ballet, was considered one of the finest ballet dancers in the world. Dancer/choreographer Robert Joffrey (deceased) founded his namesake ballet company and school in Manhattan. It served as a major training ground for aspiring ballet dancers. Nancy Hauser (deceased) established a reputable regional dance company and school in Minneapolis. Harry Sheppard (deceased) attended Bennington College with Wendy Perron and danced with her and other “downtown” postmodern dancers. Broadway dancer Harold Pierson (deceased) frequently partnered Joan Myers Brown on cabaret bookings. A former soloist with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, Desmond Richardson is an in- ternationally renowned freelance dancer/choreographer and co-artistic director of Com- plexions, a New York-based dance company. PART II Mary Hinkson, along with Matt Turney, was one of the first African American members of the Martha Graham company, joining in 1952 and dancing major solo roles. 304 THE BLACK DANCING BODY Niles Ford has danced with Merián Soto, Bill T. Jones, Marlies Yearby, and many others. Maria Mitchell and Soto worked together in the politically activist group Barrunto Dancers (directed by Beti Garcia). PART III Janet Collins (deceased), prima ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera House ballet en- semble (1951–54), was the first avowed African American dancer to hold such a position with a white American ballet company. She and Carmen de Lavallade are cousins. Based in Los Angeles, Bella Lewitsky studied with Lester Horton and danced in his company until 1950, forming her own ensemble in the early fifties. Joyce Trisler (deceased) studied with Lester Horton and danced with his company as well as with the Alvin Ailey ensemble on its first European tour (1964). She also formed her own ensemble and worked as a freelance choreographer. A student of both Janet Collins and Lester Horton, James Truitte (deceased) was a principal dancer and associate artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater until 1968, after which he became a university dance professor. NOTES LATITUDE I 1. Appiah 1992, 31, quoted in Monson 1996, 204. 2. Furthermore, “two people within the same racial category have an 85.7 percent chance of having the same characteristic at a random chromosomal locus while two people from different ‘races’ have an 85.2 percent chance. There is then only a 14.3 to 14.8 percent chance that two individuals taken at random from the world population will have a different gene at any particular site on a chromosome” (Appiah [1992, 36] quoted in Monson [1996, 230]). 3. Correspondence, 14 April 2002. 4. A BBC World News update, televised 26 November 2002, reported Antinori’s claim of having two women in his study impregnated with clones. See also New York Times, n.a., “Woman to Bear a Clone, Italian Doctor Says,” 27 November 2002, A8. 5. McPherson 1999, 35, quoting Woodward. CHAPTER 1 1. Correspondence, 14 April 2002. 2. Dixon Gottschild 1996, 9: for a fleshed-out discussion of Africanist and Europeanist dance aesthetics from Balanchine and ballet to postmodern and hip hop, see Dixon Gottschild 1996, passim. 3. Gold 1988, 40. 4. Cotter 2001, E28. 5. Whitehead 2001, 25. 6. Kendall 2000, 59. 7. Actually, she said they dance “beautifully because lives are on the line” (Acocella 1999–2000, 141). 8. Conversation with the author, 8 July 2002. CHAPTER 2 1. For previous discussions of Baker and the primitive trope, see Dixon Gottschild 1996 and 2000. 2. Gladwell 2000, 91. 3. Ibid., 92. 4. Correspondence, April 2002. LOCATION: WHO’S THERE? 1. Mason 1991, 396. 306 THE BLACK DANCING BODY LATITUDE II 1. According to Lawrence Newman, DPM (Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine), unarched or arched feet can be flexible or inflexible, with many vari- able in between. Terms like “flat feet” or “military spine” are no longer used be- cause of their medical imprecision and social stigma. Conversation with author, 20 January 2003. 2. Lipsitz 1998, 131, paraphrasing Charles Joyner. 3. Vaughan 1988, 27. 4. Thomas 1991, 8. 5. Johnson 2001, A44. 6. White and White 1998, 47, 55–56. CHAPTER 3 1. Emery 1988, 186, 188. 2. Le Roc quoted in Ryle 2000, 7. 3. Lott 1993, 112–13. 4. Winter 1978, 40. 5. Stearns and Stearns 1979, 28, quoting Lisa Lekis. 6. Southern 1971, 168. 7. Winter 1978, 39. 8. All quoted in Winter 1978, 50. 9. Ibid., 48. 10. Ibid., 47. 11. Stearns and Stearns 1979, 45. 12. Reproduced in Winter 1978, 43; Lott 1993, 114; and Emery 1988, 187. 13. Strother 1999, 4. 14. Emery 1988, 205. 15. Paraphrasing Gregory Hines in Glover 2000, 6. 16. n.a., Goings On about Town: Dance, New Yorker, 9 July 1990, 6. 17. Glover 2000, 31. 18. Ibid., 35. 19. Ibid., 54. 20. Ibid., 42–43. 21. Ibid., 14. 22. Ernie Smith presentation, Temple University, fall 1987. 23. Winter 1978, 48. 24. Glover 2000, 65. 25. Ibid., 63. 26. Ibid., 6. 27. White and White 1998, 64. 28. Ibid., 64. 29. Gwaltney 1980, 89. 30. Russell, Wilson, and Hall 1992, 5. 31. Sulcas 2001, 11. 32. As discussed in depth in Dixon Gottschild 1996, chapter 5. 33. Correspondence, May 2001. NOTES 307 CHAPTER 4 1. Henning 1995, 54. 2. Ibid., 53. 3. Dixon Gottschild 1996, 8. 4. McMains 2001–2002, 64. 5. Ibid., 65. 6. The Cowardly Lion in the film The Wizard of Oz. Quoted in Strother, 1. 7. Strother 1999, 2–3. Strother’s and Gilman’s research are principal sources con- sulted for this section. 8. Gilman 1985, 223. 9. Ibid., 232, 235. 10. Strother 1999, 23. 11. Ibid., 4. 12. Ibid. 13. Quoted in Strother 1999, 52, 32, 27. 14. Cuvier quoted in Strother 1999, 35. 15. Swarns 2002, A3. 16. Hammond and O’Connor 1988, 118; Wood 2000, 177–78.