Defining Black Dance

One thing that really struck me in the reading was the constant drive to define "black dance."  I can see the value in this endeavor, especially if it is a means of working toward true equality and understanding between blacks and whites and the total integreation of black culture into american culture as a whole.  However, I can't help but ask myself, why does there always have to be this need to take something and "define it".  The second we define something, proclaim exactly what it is, we put it in a box with certain constraints.  Then if this same thing transforms we are always on a quest to redefine it and figure out what type of box it needs now. On some level, this whole process seems quite silly.  Once again, I am not downplaying the benefits that could come of studying the history and development of black dance forms.  Rather, I guess I am surprised that so much emphasis seems to be played on defining black dance, rather than exploring it.  Perhaps it is difficult to define black dance because it is not definable?  As we see in the articles, it seems as though everyone who is posed the question, "What is black dance?" has a different answer.  This I feel is very telling of the traditions of black dance in this country, and how exploritory it is in nature.  Perhaps this is me defining black dance by saying it is undefinable and exploratory, but hey, this is what is coming out so I'm going to keep going with it...  Part of why black dance in this country may be so difficult to define is because it is not a specific tradition.  It seems to be a constant process of collaboration stemming from African roots, western European traditions, spontaneous flows, and emotional release.  The struggle to define black dance seems to parallel the struggle to define black identity within a white America.  Black culture in the United States is not straight up African culture existing in pockets in the West, and it also is not strictly Western European.  Rather, it seems to be the result of so many intermingling factors: segregation, cultural melding, diaspora, and a long history of inequality and hardship, combined with a ton of artistic creativity.  And so black dance may not necessarily fit into a box of one solid form of dance, in the way that we can pinpoint, say, classical ballet or irish step dancing.

I also question the benefit that can arise from defining black dance. A definition implies solid boundaries, where in turn apply separation. To define black dance perhaps than could further draw a separation between black and white. White dance and black dance, white culture and black culture. Perhaps it is time we stress not even equality of black and white, but the humanness of both. The need to show the quality of two groups still implies that there are two groups. There is a lyric from a song I really like that goes, "when the color of our skin will matter no more than the color of our eyes."
On the other hand, considering the social situation in the United States and the racial segregationand prejudice that continues to take place both overtly and on more subtle, even subconcious levels, this type of attention put toward the study and understanding of black dance as its own unique form of dance could be quite empowering to the black community. To be honest I don't even like having to write like this....black community, white community, black, white, black, white. It seems so totally ridiculous that so much struggle, pain, and discrimination could have arisen because of fear triggered in large part by physical appearance. But that is what has happened, and I guess because racism has been such a part of our culture for so long we can't just drop it, we need to work through it.

On a side note, I was fascinated by aspects of the Black dance aesthetic and its intersection point with similar themes in Black music. Brenda Dixon mentions that white critics had called Alvin Aileys "approach to making dances is dense and overchoreographed" (Dixon, 11). And continues to show that his dense choreography is actually reflective of an African-based Black aesthetic: "This dance genre is based on clusters of movement by the equivalent of polyrhythms, call-and response, and multiple meter, which are signatures of African-based music," and which can be traced through later black music of the diaspora. Here we recieve some insight into one realm of the Black dance aesthetic as a reflection of how an understanding of of rich cultural traditions. This is cool in its own right. Furthermore, an understanding of what informs the black aesthetic can clearly be a valuable guard against abrupt, un-informed judgement that grows out of white, western preconceptions of what dance is and what it should look like. "A person knowledgeable about these features of Black performance, is unlikely to evaluated/perceive a Black-inspired Ailey work as a weak exercise in choreographic principles from another frame of reference" (Dixon, 11). People are such funny beings... so misguided in our own decidedly set ways of doing things. And yet new growth always comes. Eventually the box is broken.

Shivani Robinson, Dance 163