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Choreographing Social Change: Reflections on Dancing in Blackness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2021

Halifu Osumare
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Abstract

This autoethnography explores a dance scholar's previous choreographic trajectory, positioning the author's career within the sixties and seventies Black Arts Movement for social change. I explore several iterations of my dance lecture-demonstration in particular, which was produced over two decades and three continents, demonstrating how temporal and spatial shifts affect the content and context of a choreographic work. Additionally, I explore my shift into arts producing through my national dance initiative that helped define the work of eighties Black choreographers in the postmodern dance movement. The result is a consideration of how being Black, female, and a dancer provides a particular sociohistorical lens.

Keywords

autoethnographyBlack Arts MovementBlack choreographers
Type
Article
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 53 , Special Issue 2: Arms Akimbo: Black Women Choreographing Social Change , August 2021 , pp. 130 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Dance Studies Association

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References

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