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African American Dance Revisited Undoing Master Narratives in the Studying and Teaching of Dance History

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African American Dance Revisited Undoing Master Narratives in the Studying and Teaching of Dance History Chapter 4 African American dance revisited Undoing master narratives in the studying and teaching of dance history TAKIYAH NUR AMIN Introduction O UNDERTAKE THE STUDY and teaching of dance history is both a T personal and political act. One must make choices about what is included or excluded from the exploration and in so doing, reveal a set of intellectual priorities that can either reinforce dominant narratives or choose to move in a direction that troubles or complicates such notions. While I am generally suspicious of dichoto- mies, the tension inherent in this choice-making has typifi ed my experience as both a student and teacher of dance history; I have ‘danced’ along this intellectual tightrope, inevitably making choices along the way about which perspectives, nar- ratives and aesthetics will sit at the centre of inquiry. The diffi culty has been that academic success in the study of dance history has long since been predicated on being conversant in master narratives about the development of performance tradi- tions that have largely marginalized the cultural and aesthetic contributions of people of colour in general and persons of African descent in particular. Routinely, I am struck by the ways in which the work of Black dance artists and Afro-descended performance traditions are often left out, diminished, misrecognized or rendered as a mere ‘contribution’ to a more dominant understanding of ‘western dance his- tory’, which is often read as remarkably and persistently White. On more occasions than I care to admit, my own students have articulated upon beginning their focused study of twentieth-century US dance history that the creative and artistic domain of concert dance ‘belonged’ to White women. Encountering such perspectives in the classroom has meant that much of my work has become a recuperative eff ort, meant to ensure that my students are familiar with dominant narratives in dance history in order to interrogate those legacies and off er expanded, alternative read- ings that centre the work of non-dominant cultural groups. This is not a novel undertaking; rather, this eff ort to complicate dance history is imperative in ensuring AFRICAN AMERICAN DANCE REVISITED 45 that we move towards a more complete and thorough understanding of the per- formance traditions, movement vocabularies and theatrical practices that constitute dance history. The history of African American dance has been especially rich, off ering a potent area of inquiry that has aided me and my students in rethinking the development of US performance traditions. As such, I proceed in this chapter to briefl y defi ne the contours of African American dance, articulate several imperatives for studying this history and outline the ways in which African American dance can be read into mainstream narratives about American concert dance traditions. I end with a brief discussion on resources for further study. The ultimate goal is to encourage readers to expand the centre of their inquiry in dance history and to complicate dominant readings of that history by becoming familiar with and conversant in the work of African American dancers and choreographers. A brief note on terminology I have discussed the use of the term ‘Black dance’ elsewhere at length and inter- rogated the ways in which the defi nition of the term has shifted historically (Amin 2011). For the purposes of this chapter, it is critical to note that by African American dance I am referring to the embodied performance traditions that both emanate from and have been reshaped by persons of African descent living in the United States, via the growth and development of the early colonies and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, also known as the middle passage or maafa.1 While my focus in this chapter will primarily consider theatrical traditions, it should be understood that Black dance encompasses concert performance traditions as well as social and vernacular practices that are present in both sacred and secular contexts. I have written elsewhere about the problem of referring to Africanist aesthetics in American dance as a ‘contributory’ force, particularly in the development of jazz dance (Amin 2014). While the language of ‘contribution’ may be commonplace in thinking about the ways in which people of African descent have impacted US cultural institutions, I resist this framing. ‘Contribution’ suggests a pre-existing, often White, cultural scaff old upon which African American aesthetics came to rest. Rather, I am interested in exploring the ways in which African American dance itself is, in many instances, the scaff old upon which other aesthetic predi- lections are grafted. Why study or teach African American dance history? In a world where White supremacist capitalist patriarchy 2 persists, some might question the value of, or argue against, the necessity of studying African American 46 TAKIYAH NUR AMIN dance history. I off er that there are at least four imperatives or essential consider- ations that support the study of African American dance history: • African American dance history is foundational: It is impossible to meaning- fully and honestly engage the development of American performance tradi- tions and ignore the impact of African Americans. While some historians argue that there was a sustained presence of Africans in the Americas much earlier, it is a well-documented fact that persons of African descent have been present in what we know today as the United States since 1619, when approximately twenty such persons arrived to Jamestown, Virginia, on the ship known as Cape Comfort. Their presence and the subsequent presence of other persons of African descent in the new colonies shaped the social, cultural, political and artistic context of the emerging nation. • African American dance history is global: African American dance traditions have been exported globally as a result of trade, travel and media. While the circulation of African American musical innovations and literary work has been arguably easier to track due to written documentation, the transmission and dissemination of African American dance are of no lesser impact; this is demonstrated by the ways in which the signature of American dance abroad is often intimately tied to African American movement aesthetics.3 • African American dance history is contemporary: There is no single period of US history where dance and other artistic and cultural practices have not emanated from African American communities. As such, those interested in understanding current modes of performance and social/vernacular dance practices in the United States have to account for and wrestle with how African American aesthetics shape the present. • African American dance history is generative: Social and vernacular movement vocabularies continue to emanate from African American communities. Often, as with forms like hip-hop dance, as these dance forms garner mainstream interest and valuation, they are infused into a broad range of performance contexts and are amplifi ed both on the stage and beyond. A critical point: the execution or performance of African American dance does not depend necessarily on the presence of African American bodies. Such movement vocabularies have been danced by bodies that claim other sociocultural identities. While African American bodies might accurately be read as a spectre in spaces where they are not present but their dance forms are, the key here is that the absence of African American bodies in motion is not a reasonable justifi cation for refusing to study or engage these vocabularies. Plainly, the foregoing imperatives and this critical point about African American dance history articulates a framework for why studying this topic is fundamental to any accurate understanding of global dance forms today and American dance in particular. AFRICAN AMERICAN DANCE REVISITED 47 Lastly, while one might certainly propose an inquiry into African American dance history on its own and for its own merits, it is possible to infuse this history within the teaching and study of more dominant historical narratives in order to inter- rogate and deconstruct them. In so doing, the work of African American dancers and the movement vocabularies and traditions that emanate from African American communities are not so much ‘moved from the margins’ as it is the ‘centre’ itself which expands; our fi eld of inquiry becomes elastic enough to embrace the multiple movement practices that constitute American dance. Pathways and considerations In my own study and teaching of American dance history, I have been especially interested in the ways in which the development of modern and postmodern performance traditions are discussed. While this is of no less importance than the histories of social and vernacular vocabularies, I choose here to focus in on considering the ways in which African American dance history can be infused into discussions of American modern and postmodern performance, to expand, compli- cate and arguably reshape our understanding of these genres. While my interest is primarily in the twentieth century, I will off er some points of departure for those interested in considering African American dance prior to 1901. Notably, the African American presence had been fi rmly established in the new colonies that would become the United States by the eighteenth century (1701– 1800). Those with a keen interest in African American dance during this period might best study how movement practices emanated from plantation contexts, given the pervasiveness of enslavement in the United States during this period. Katrina Hazzard-Donald’s Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture (1992) traces such practices from 1619 onward and Jacqui Malone’s Step- pin’ on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance (1996) explores the meaning and style of dances emblematic of this period. Lynn Fauley Emery’s ever popular Black Dance from 1619 to Today (1989) provides useful thick descriptions of plantation-era dance practices.
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