|
Modern Black Dance
The emergence of a black modern dance movement was inspired by
the work of two black American women, Katherine Dunham and Pearl
Primus. Both were academics as well as dancers and spent a great
deal of time researching the origins of black dance in the USA.
Both toured to Britain with great success. In particular their
work influenced the young Berto Pasuka, who went ahead to form
the first British black dance company Ballet
Nègres.
Dunham made her name in 1934 on Broadway with musicals Le
Jazz Hot and Tropics where she introduced a dance
called L’ag’ya. This was based on the rhythms and martial
arts dances of the slaves who used dance to develop their stamina
in preparation for uprisings against their white masters.
Dunham researched dance from Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Martinique
for her choreography. She believed that black dance should have
equal status with the white European tradition and wanted to trace
black dance roots. The technique that she developed also drew
on ballet and modern dance. In 1944 she founded a school of dance.
At her school students learnt philosophy, anthropology, and languages
as well as tap, ballet and primitive dance and percussion.
Pearl Primus was the first black modern dancer. Strange Fruit
was her first performance. It had no music but a sound tape of
a poem about a black man being lynched by a white racist. It was
passionate and angry. Like other black dancers in the emerging
black dance culture she used the art form to express the social
and political constraints on black people within America. She
was born in Trinidad before her parents immigrated to Harlem in
1919. She worked at the New Dance Group Studios which was one
of few places where black dancers could train alongside whites.
She went on to study for a PhD and did research on dance in Africa.
Her most famous dance was the Fanga, an African dance
of welcome which introduced traditional African dance to the stage.
|
Introduction
Harlem Renaissance
