Description
Book SynopsisThe popularity and profile of African dance have exploded across the African diaspora in the last fifty years. Hot Feet and Social Change presents traditionalists, neo-traditionalists, and contemporary artists, teachers, and scholars telling some of the thousands of stories lived and learned by people in the field. Concentrating on eight major cities in the United States, the essays challenges myths about African dance while demonstrating its power to awaken identity, self-worth, and community respect. These voices of experience share personal accounts of living African traditions, their first encounters with and ultimate embrace of dance, and what teaching African-based dance has meant to them and their communities. Throughout, the editors alert readers to established and ongoing research, and provide links to critical contributions by African and Caribbean dance experts. Contributors: Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Abby Carlozzo, Steven Cornelius, Yvonne Daniel, Charles Chuck Davis, Esailama
Trade Review"An intriguing collection of stories about the origins and purposes of African dance . . .
Hot Feet and Social Change, is a strong resource." --
African Studies Quarterly"The collection is generally well conceived and will surely provide inspiration for the dance world." --
Choice"Many of the authors are themselves the sources of both dance traditions created within the last decades and of significant studies about them. This work is unprecedented and, thanks to its insider perspectives, only possible as the editors have constructed it."--Sheila S. Walker, editor of
African Roots, American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas
