Description
Book SynopsisIn a gathering of griot traditions fusing storytelling, cultural history, social, and literary criticism, Gale P. Jackson re-members and represents how women of the African diaspora have drawn on ancient traditions to record memory, history, and experience in song, dance, and poetics in performance.
Trade Review"Both relatable and scholarly, this is a fascinating and original study."—T. L. Stowell,
Choice“The particular significance of this rich scholarship is the way it foregrounds and uplifts music, movement, dance, and cultural practice in the long, complex, and astonishing story of struggle, resilience, imagination, survival, and innovation among African diasporic people. The movement detailed and the role of story, percussion, and sound offer histories/herstories of people continuously facing unspeakable brutalities and invasions of the body and soul, who will always continue to live their ancestries, their cultures, and the maps of their souls in folklore and in the physical world. This is rich, essential work.”—Kathy Engel, poet and associate arts professor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
“It is not only the breadth and range of the scholars referenced in this book that has me awestruck but the amount of material covered that is impressive. It yields a fresh perspective on familiar material and a creative perspective in linking genres together in time periods and places never before charted. This is a brilliant and original work.”—Kariamu Welsh, director of the Institute for African Dance Research and Performance
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Past and Prologue as Prelude: Eurydice’s Black Flight
1. The Way We Do: An Introductory Mapping
2. Juba Danced: Following a Story in Motion
3. The Ancestors and the Lullaby: Passing It On
4. Put Your Hands on Your Hips: Rites of Passage in Performance
5. Rosy, Possum, Morning Star: Work Songs and the Blues
Coda: Circling Back Around
Notes
Bibliography
Index
