African-American dance
African-American dance is a form of dance that was created by Africans in the Diaspora, specifically the United States. It has developed within various spaces throughout African-American communities in the United States, rather than studios, schools, or companies. These dances are usually centered on folk and social dance practice, though performance dance often supplies complementary aspects to this. Placing great value on improvisation, these dances are characterized by ongoing change and development. There are a number of notable African-American modern dance companies using African-American cultural dance as an inspiration, among these are the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Katherine Dunham Company. Hollywood and Broadway have also provided opportunities for African-American artists to share their work and for the public to support them.
African American dance has had many waves of ingenuity, especially in the 20th century. The Harlem Renaissance was an especially important time for this artform and greatly influenced modern dance.
African American dance has been an important part of competition, tradition, and cultural expression, and plays an integral role in African American culture. Many of these dance moves have also been co-opted by White dancers and entered mainstream media.
History
After the start of the slave trade in the 1500s, Africans brought their dances to North, Central, and South America, along with the Caribbean islands. Slaves would often dance to entertain their white slave masters.Development during slavery
The Greater Chesapeake area encompassing Virginia, Maryland, and much of North Carolina was the earliest and perhaps most influential location of the black-white cultural interchange that produced "African-American" dance. Given their cultural differences, particularly with music and dance, they most likely learned to dance together by creating brand-new dances to draw on their traditions without replicating them precisely. Throughout the America, slaves blended tribal rhythms from their roots in Africa with ballroom rhythms of the US to create a distinctive African-American form of dance. The tribal rhythms frequently originated from East and West Africa. The call and response dance forms that are popular among modern African-American dancers can trace their roots back to these locations. Elements of European dances were also absorbed into these creolized dances, and by the late 18th century, the area had developed a recognizable dance style.Dance and music were a big part of African society, and that tradition carried on in the diaspora. African American slaves also used dance and music as part of their religious ceremonies and other social events in their community. Other times, dance was forced on slaves as a way to entertain slave masters, but this was reclaimed as a way for slaves to entertain themselves and pass the time while working, or at night when spending time with each other.
The limited pictorial record indicates that the original African movements, which emphasized bending at the waist and hips, eventually faded away in favor of a more upright style, similar to European dances. However, it has been argued that this change was not an adoption of the European style, but actually reflected the African practice of carrying heavy loads on the head, which requires a straight, upright spine. Black dancing continued to reflect other African characteristics such as angularity and asymmetry of body positions, multiple body rhythms or polyrhythms, and a low center of gravity.
Katrina Thompson found that the evolution of black music and dance emphasizes dance as a form of release. In some instances, slaveholders forced slaves to sing and dance to entertain them while they worked. The act of singing and dancing for themselves thus became an act of reclamation. The cakewalk, for example, developed on plantations as a subtle mockery of the formal, mannered dancing practiced by slaveholding whites. The slaves would dress in handed-down finery and comically exaggerate the poised movements of minuets and waltzes for their own amusement. A 1981 article by Brooke Baldwin concludes that the cakewalk was meant "to satirize the competing culture of supposedly 'superior' whites. Slaveholders were able to dismiss its threat in their own minds by considering it as a simple performance which existed for their own pleasure".
Black slaves would often dance after a day of picking cotton.
Black Vaudeville
Early performances of African American dances in mainstream spaces were not done by Black performers, but rather White dancers in black face. These dance performances were interpreted more as a satirical comedy or "slapstick burlesque" as opposed to genuine artistry.But at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, all-Black Vaudeville shows with chorus line dancers started popping up, including The Creole Show and Isham's Octaroons. Black entrepreneurs like Sherman Dudley, Pat Chapelle, and the Griffin Sisters developed Vaudeville touring companies and theater circuits to showcase African-American talent, paving the way for African-American Musical Theater. Notable entertainers included dancer/choreographer Aida Overton Walker, "The Queen of Cakewalk", and The Whitman Sisters, who ran a touring company considered 'an incubator for Black Talent,' especially dancers. Tap dance, a fusion of Irish and African American movements, was made popular at this time by Black dancers, including Bill Bojangles Robinson, John Bubbles, and the Nicholas Brothers. Shows from this era introduced dances like the Cakewalk, Juba, Pigeon Wing, and Possum Walk to more audiences. This era also included a large migration of Black performers from the US to Europe to escape the intense racism that was prevalent, not just in the performance scene, but everywhere.
New York City and the Harlem Renaissance
Just as the Harlem Renaissance saw the development of art, poetry, literature and theater in Harlem during the early 20th century, it also saw the development of a rich musical and dance life: clubs, ballrooms, the home rent party and other black spaces as the birthplaces of new dances, theaters and the shift from vaudeville to local "shows" written and choreographed by African-American artists; theaters as public forums for popularizing African-American cultural dances. The Harlem Renaissance was the first time that an all-black production found itself on Broadway, with Shuffle Along debuting in 1921. Florence Mills was the first Black woman to headline a Broadway venue, and her work helped to eradicate racial stereotypes of black people, both in the performance industry and in society.Following the release of The Great Gatsby in 1925, African American dance terms began to enter mainstream American slang. Terms like "jazzin' it", "goose bumps", "in the groove", and "swing" began to be used not just by the African American performance community, but average Whites too. With the move of these terms to the mainstream, the people that originated them soon followed suite. The first professional African American dance company, Hampton Institute Creative Dance Group, was created in 1928. Soon after in 1931, Katherine Dunham created Ballet Negre, later renamed Chicago Dance Group. Dunham also choreographed a show entitled Rites de Passage in 1943, which detailed the story of her life in Haiti. This performance was one of the first of its kind that told a specifically Black story that detailed an experience White audiences would not be able to relate to. This was very new for its time, as the majority of the shows at that time were performances filled with White dancers, telling White stories.
In the late 1960s, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook created the Dance Theater of Harlem, and it quickly became a world-renowned African American ballet company. They taught both classical ballet and modern ethnic dance, so there was a blend of dance types in their performances that was uniquely African American. The studio toured both nationally and internationally, going so far as to perform at the White House and the 1984 Olympic Games. They were the first dance studio that was catered towards black dancers with the goal to give these dancers the change to learn all kinds of dance. Their efforts made great strides in erasing the color barrier in the field of dance, and especially in classical ballet.
In the 1980s, Voguing was a popular type of performance at events known as Balls. Ball culture was a way for black people, mostly LGBTQ+ performers and women, to come together and compete, to show off, and have a chance to be seen. Paris Is Burning is a documentary about ball culture and its evolution shown through the eyes of the drag mothers. It discusses how they started, how they came to be, and the culture of them.
The Bay Area
San Francisco's Bay Area was also a big contributor to the art of Hip-Hop, both in the music and the dance aesthetics. As Hip-Hop grew in popularity in New York, the West Coast funk movement was also thriving, and the two had influences on the style of the other. KMEL was a radio station in San Francisco that was very popular throughout the different neighborhoods in the Bay Area, and they played music that was not super mainstream. The station was one of the first to play Hip-Hop music, and helped it get the outreach it needed to become popular throughout the large city. Hip-Hop dance became such an integral part of these communities, that different neighborhoods in the area would each have signature styles or techniques, and one could tell where someone was from just based on their moves.African-American modern dance
Breakdancing is a central part of African-American modern dance, as it is the base for many more specific types of dance to stem from. It is also considered one of the pillars of Hip-Hop, and is essential to that music community and aesthetic.Breakdancing was created in the South Bronx, New York, in the 1970s, beginning as an underground dance movement. It started as a result of Hip-Hop music, as a physical performance during the interlude of a DJ's set. The vocals would die out and it would be just instrumental music. This “break” in the song would then have a dance performed during it, and the term “Breakdance” was coined. Improvisation plays a key role in Breakdancing, as it lets people express themselves and their gut impulses, similar to the moves found in Spiritual African dance, as well as compete with others and show off their skills in the spur of the moment. Being able to think on one's feet is crucial for Hip-Hop and Breakdancing, and impulsivity is part of the art style. Part of the crowd aspect of Breakdancing is the concept of cypher. Cypher refers to the group of onlookers that gather around the breakdancing performers to cheer, diss, and just generally react to the competition.
Breakdancing became mainstream in the 1980s, following the release of the movie Flashdance that portrayed Breakdancing dance moves to the world. Since then, it has become an international art form and phenomenon, stretching to other countries like Germany, South Korea, Japan, and France. It has also found its way into many more professional dance areas, like the competition show So You Think You Can Dance. Hollywood's depictions on Breakdance have been slightly harmful though, because it has reduced the Hip-Hop dance movement to just Breakdance, and ignored many other types of dance.