The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool
- Book Review,
by Brenda Dixon
From Publishers Weekly
"My topic is hot: Race remains dangerous territory, and talking race through the black dancing body is tricky," notes Temple University dance professor Gottschild (Waltzing in the Dark) at the beginning of her exploration of "Africanist presences in performance." Gottschild's exploration of the geography of the black dancing body begins with her own story (as a young dancer in the late 1950s, she recalls, her long-legged, slim-hipped body "got me in trouble" when more "feminine" bodies were in fashion). The author would also audition for Broadway shows, yet knew African-Americans rarely made the cut. This very personal exploration ranges from the question of what black dance is, to the role and perceptions of various body parts, from feet to hair. Along the way, the author interviews 24 leading dancers and choreographers (not all African-American), including Trisha Brown, Bill T. Jones, Shelley Washington and Ralph Lemon, representing a variety of dance eras, idioms and traditions. Anyone interested in dance and in African-American culture will find much to ponder here.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"This volume rescues a vital history of theatrical dance that reflects a legacy of racial divides."--Lewis Whittington, Philadelphia City Paper
"...explore[s] race politics, the bodies of black dancers, African influences and the genesis of acceptance."--Nadirah Sabir, Upscale Magazine
"Anyone interested in dance and in African-American culture will find much to ponder here."--Publishers Weekly Annex, 7/21/03
"With typical generosity, Brenda Dixon Gottschild convenes a discussion of some of the most crucial issues defining black-white relations in contemporary American society. Skillfully weaving her own voice among those of diverse artists, she raises questions about racial stereotypes, expectations, and prejudices as they are experienced by performers and viewers. Because it focuses on the dancing body, situating its cultivation of physicality as part of more general cultural elaborations of corporeality, The Black Dancing Body addresses the experience of race at a profound and vital level. Candidly pursuing the racialized experiences of feet, butts, hair, and skin, Dixon Gottschild gives readers an abundance of perspectives, both historical and cultural, on the physical. She invites readers into a dialogue, marked by honesty, courage, and soul, that is capable of moving our bodies and our spirits."--Susan Foster, Department of World Arts and Cultures, University of California at Los Angeles
"The Black Dancing Body is a fresh and surprising collage of a book. It walks around its subject, looking at it from new angles, carefully knocking down cliches and stereotypes, allowing dancers' voices to be heard. The quietest, truest voice is the author's own, as she meditates on her own body and the associations it calls up from her own dancing past and her life as an African American woman. This book must be read, to understand once again why our culture is such a painful and exhilarating mixture of black and white elements, and why, in the midst of celebrating the mixture, we must never forget the African-American contribution."--Elizabeth Kendall
Praise for Waltzing in the Dark:
"A major achievement. Her insights into the way the history of a people is lived in the body through dance is profound and a long awaited gift."--Jawole Willa Joe Zollar
"...as sensuous as the artists Brenda describes" --Bill T. Jones"Anyone interested in dance and in African-American culture will find much to ponder here." - Publishers Weekly Annex
Review
"This volume rescues a vital history of theatrical dance that reflects a legacy of racial divides."--Lewis Whittington, Philadelphia City Paper
"...explore[s] race politics, the bodies of black dancers, African influences and the genesis of acceptance."--Nadirah Sabir, Upscale Magazine
"Anyone interested in dance and in African-American culture will find much to ponder here."--Publishers Weekly Annex, 7/21/03
"With typical generosity, Brenda Dixon Gottschild convenes a discussion of some of the most crucial issues defining black-white relations in contemporary American society. Skillfully weaving her own voice among those of diverse artists, she raises questions about racial stereotypes, expectations, and prejudices as they are experienced by performers and viewers. Because it focuses on the dancing body, situating its cultivation of physicality as part of more general cultural elaborations of corporeality, The Black Dancing Body addresses the experience of race at a profound and vital level. Candidly pursuing the racialized experiences of feet, butts, hair, and skin, Dixon Gottschild gives readers an abundance of perspectives, both historical and cultural, on the physical. She invites readers into a dialogue, marked by honesty, courage, and soul, that is capable of moving our bodies and our spirits."--Susan Foster, Department of World Arts and Cultures, University of California at Los Angeles
"The Black Dancing Body is a fresh and surprising collage of a book. It walks around its subject, looking at it from new angles, carefully knocking down cliches and stereotypes, allowing dancers' voices to be heard. The quietest, truest voice is the author's own, as she meditates on her own body and the associations it calls up from her own dancing past and her life as an African American woman. This book must be read, to understand once again why our culture is such a painful and exhilarating mixture of black and white elements, and why, in the midst of celebrating the mixture, we must never forget the African-American contribution."--Elizabeth Kendall
Praise for Waltzing in the Dark:
"A major achievement. Her insights into the way the history of a people is lived in the body through dance is profound and a long awaited gift."--Jawole Willa Joe Zollar
"...as sensuous as the artists Brenda describes" --Bill T. Jones"Anyone interested in dance and in African-American culture will find much to ponder here." - Publishers Weekly Annex
Review
"To read Brenda Dixon Gottschild's new book is to march with her right across soome of the most controversial terrain in dance.... this invigorating, argumentative and highly presonable book is a must."
Book Description
Watching contemporary American dance is a unique and electrifying experience. Swept along with the dancers, one wonders how the unorthodox movement and unexpected tempo came about. To provide at least one answer to this question, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts a "geography" that maps a unique, yet startlingly ubiquitous, region of influence in the history of American dance: the black dancing body. The author invites the reader on a journey of sorts and says, "The black dancing body (a fiction based on reality, a fact based upon illusion) has infiltrated and informed the shapes and changes of the American dancing body." Using interviews with black, white, and brown dance practitioners as well as performance analysis and personal recollections of her own life in the world of dance, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts the endeavors, ordeals, and triumphs of "black" dance and dancers by exposing perceptions, images, and assumptions, past and present. In her journey to discover the contours and importance of the black dancing body, the author spoke to some of the greatest dancers and choreographers of our time - Fernando Bujones, Trisha Brown, Garth Fagan, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, Meredith Monk, Merián Soto, Doug Elkins, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and a cadre of their esteemed colleagues. The "embattled territories" of the black dancing body are probed chapter by chapter: feet, buttocks, hair, skin color. The whole of the black dancing body is "re-membered" in the final chapters on soul and spirit. The Black Dancing Body is a key to the ineffable rhythms and movement of dance in America.
About the Author
BRENDA DIXON GOTTSCHILD, author of Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts and Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era, is Professor Emerita of Dance Studies at Temple University. She is a senior consultant/writer for Dance Magazine and performs with her husband, choreographer Hellmut Gottschild.
Buy from Amazon
Compare Prices
|
|
Home
