Black Women's Dance History

Stars, Constellations, and Galaxies of Movement

Photo: “Katherine Dunham performs in Cabin in the Sky,”

Special Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois University

researching race, gender, and performance

Putting Black Women Center Stage

Black Women’s Dance History traces individuals, schools, and genres of cultural and performing arts.

This collaborative research project seeks to recount journeys of dance-world luminaries like Josephine Baker, Janet Collins, Pearl Primus, Norma Miller, Judith Jamison, Virginia Johnson, Debbie Allen, L’Antionette Stines, Lula Washington, Misty Copeland, and Leiomy Maldanado while also commemorating foundations of community-building movements like the Katherine Dunham Company, Urban Bush Women, the International Association of Blacks in Dance, Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, the Spelman College Department of Dance and Choreography, the Howard University Bisonette Dance Ensemble, and Black-women-led programs and studios globally.

Traversing various styles of the concert and community stage, authors in this research collective historicize race, gender, and Black performance by centering Black feminist and womanist analyses, querying and queering constructions of sex and sexuality, chronicling the impact of African origins, unpacking how Diasporic traditions like samba, salsa, and soca have influenced popular performance, and correcting systemic erasures of Black women’s diverse embodiments, especially in mainstream academic departments and professional companies.

Building on Foundational Research

As a collection, this project highlights the scholarly body of work by researchers like Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Nadine George-Graves, Pawlet Brookes, and Victoria Baltimore-Dale alongside groundbreaking gatherings like University of Kentucky (2015) and in London (2016).

Asking Focused Questions

Centering scholarship that problematizes geography, ethnicity, identity, shape, color, culture, and other themes of interest, this project highlights leading Black women dancer-scholars in multiple genres (see below for sample list). Black Women’s Dance History illuminates the ways Africana women have both established and expanded creative universes of dance and performance.