African Dance in New York City

I appreciated this article as a concise overview of prominent players in the African dance movement within the United States. However, I would have liked to have the article delve more into the political and social complexities of Africa as a representative body, both artistically and politically, within black American expression. With Charles Moore, for instance, who’s training with Katherine Dunham as well as Asadata Dafora, begs a deeper question of how these forms interact, compliment or maybe even conflict with one another. With literature from Africa, there are similarities of structure and content, particularly that written in English, responding to imposed identity, form, etc. With dance that is coming out of East Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, that have these European influences, I would be interested to know how much of these dances retain their historical properties, and meaning, and how much are subversive, or responsive to invasion and inculcations of external cultures. How do varying African culture and language respond to the generalization and grouping of expression under on umbrella of “Africa,” what does that mean. Is it silencing? As black dance forms sometimes seem to honor that ambiguity, in various forms, how does African Dance and expression retain an identity that is separate from this, or should it? …this is a very consciously inserted tangent….
Reiterating the over arching questing of “what is black dance”, this article further examines the prominence of dance companies and pioneers that focused primarily on presenting continental dance traditions and forms. Prior to this, much of our reading has had the task of defining and categorizing elements and forms of black American and diasporic dance, which due to its transplantation, syncretism, fusion and evolution within modern and post modern culture, can be difficult to identify. Further discussions on form and aesthetic complicate this matter even more, confounding the identities of expression and art that materialize from history and creativity. The predominance of African dance and its political and social connections to American dance forms, particular during and after the civil rights period, is an interesting juxtaposition and interaction. Evident across literary, musical and even linguistic canons, the emergence of African form and voice gives some context to some of these origins of the movements and choreography coming out of America.
New York City, as a center of immigration and domestic migration, particularly from the south, coupled with the renaissance movements in Harlem with dance, literature and music, provides an interesting archive of black movement and definition. African Dance, whose focus is seems less on recreation and definition, but rather appears to seek representation and clarity. As Africa is not simply on entity (as the Americas and other competing imperialistic powers constructed it as, both within the continent and in reference, and as America’s pluralism is more evident,) it is necessary to acknowledge these forms and reforms- their relevance, both politically and socially.