Vanessa Evers-- DANC 163-- The History of Black Dance in America/Black Dance

I found it interesting and surprising to see in "The History of Black Dance" the extent to which African dance has influenced all different forms of dance since the antebellum period. Despite the fact that black people were forced to live a parallel existence to the white mainstream up until the middle of the 20th century in the United States, black dance still influenced and inspired the majority of popular dance. This permeation is especially relevant because it speaks to the power of dance and art in general to survive and even thrive despite (or perhaps as a result of) social boundaries. Even though white people probably thought their lives were untouched by black culture, they were dancing the waltz or the jitterbug, unaware of the cultural roots of those dances. As a result of globalization and the end of segregation, the same subconscious cultural influence affects every world citizen everyday in the 21st century from food to clothing styles to language.

"Black Dance" addresses this blending of cultural influences in its struggle to find an accurate and all-encompassing definition of black dance. Even though I see the relevance of discussing the formal definition of black dance in an academic setting, in daily life and in performance and practice, the definition seems irrelevant and outdated. Rather than limit the art forms with archaic categorization, academics and artists should focus on the continuum of cultural influence, as Wilson implies. At this point, black dance and white dance have both influenced one another and other ethnic or cultural dance styles (Latino dance, for example) that the effort to compartmentalize white dance and black dance is antiquated and obsolete.