This essay was interesting for me because of it's descriptive nature. Brenda Dixon Gottschild describes the african dance aesthetic through the example of Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker. Her four headings (Polycentrism, High-Affect Juxtaposition, Ephebism, Aesthetic of the cool, and Embracing the conflict) summarize this aesthetic. While this article was very detailed, some of the movement that Gottschild was describing was so difficult for me to picture that I had to watch a video of "Snake Hips" to understand what she was talking about. What really struck me in the video was the fact that "Snake Hips'" dance movements were as much a theatrical show as a dance. I gathered from reading the article that this effect had to do mainly with Ephebism and the Aesthetic of the cool. I know that this article in conjunction with the video I saw will help me in our lab section due to its great descriptions of body movement.
Another thing that this article dealt with was Balanchine's incorporation of this African Aesthetic into ballet. Gottschild clearly explains her argument and justifies it so well that it is almost impossible to question her. Once again her descriptions of the dancers movements aide in the readers visualizations and overall comprehension of her text and thesis; that dance was created for the rainbow and Balanchine attempted to strip the notion that Black people could not dance ballet. Gottschild writes: "we shall see a body, the American dancing body. It is a portrait in black and white."
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