Black Dance: The Transition To Modern Dance

Before my research I knew that my topic was a popular dance in the 1920s. The dance comes from the song "The Charleston". I choose this topic because I found it very interesting, I found this topic interesting because the1920s was an entertaining time period, the dances created then must be a fun topic. I would love to find out more about my topic. Such as why was the dance created? How did it become popular? Who created the dance?

Fashion and aesthetics of African American are set of qualities in art, and specifically in this paper dance and music that come from African art. Robert Farris Thompson’s observations of art in central and western Africa and Kariamu Welsh Asante’s observations of dance in Zimbabwe identify common themes of African art. Method of dancing is another way of incorporation and valuing the entire body and bringing together the music and dance.

Throughout the world, there have been several different dances created and people do not fully know the origins of the dances. For example, the twist was created by Chubby Checker in the 60s. There have been several different ways to show the rhythmic ability as a whole and the most different thing that people were doing was several different ways of dancing. In the late 1700s and the early 1800s, African Americans were starting to do different dances as a whole. However, they were not fully called as a dance or as they were referred to as contra dances, reels, and jigs when the cadence was called out. The difference was when there was a change in general if there was no cadence, then the African Americans would be dancing. African Americans

Dance has always been the focal point in which Africans are able to let free through movements of emotion. In this essay I will discuss the history of African Dance and its importance to the African Culture. Also will be discussing the general information of African dance, the different types of African dance and the ones that I like the most. Dance in the African culture is something that cannot be taken advantage of in the African Culture because it holds such a strong meaningful moment at the time of any occasion.

What people don’t know about our society today is that African Americas have created most of the dances we do today. As a society, we have been inspired by the native African dances because they poured their souls into the dances which all had meaning. From what I’ve noticed African Americans and dance are a pair because it brings out the rhythm and joy in folks. The musical culture is very strong and over the last few years has become stronger.

The topic for this research paper was black music. I claim that as black music changed so did their behaviors. In my investigation i first researched the jazz styles. In this part of my research I investigated jazz style music. Did you know louis armstrong made jazz famous.In the second part of my research I investigated society based music.

As Bame once said, “In dancing, each one finds themselves in ecstatic harmony with other participants, it heightens their sense of belonging and attachment and thereby generates social solidarity among them and the entire community”(40). Ultimately, African music and dance is a relationship that can’t be broken apart. It has been a huge part in life where everybody comes together within their communities and grow together socially and

Katherine Dunham, an African American dancer from Chicago Illinois had a very successful dance career in American and European theatre in the 20th century. Dunham was a choreographer as well as a dancer. She directed her own dance company for many years before she died May 2006. Dunham was known as the “matriarch and queen mother of black dance” meaning that she was the “head” or “leader” of black dance. Her works and pieces all showed similarity and differences throughout the time in which they were produced. Most of her works were not solos but they were danced with her and her company in which she taught various classes based on her technique.

During the civil rights, one prominent music was jazz, Jazz played a huge role African American music and was even considered the’’ Classical music of America’. The popular Jazz artists include Buck Clayton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong.

4. Kealiinohomoku. “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance” Pg 533

Today one of the most powerful ways of communication is through music and dance. In every house hold from the edges of the earth everything has a rhythm. Whether it be our heart beat, even the way we blink, talk, breath and how we think is to a rhythm. We all have our own theme music if you will. Music has evolved from the beginning of time until now, music dates back from the beginning of time. Music and Dance are the most important things in my life. This is the way I express myself and that is why this topic is so important to me. Since dance has evolved there has been some issues that many people have stumbled across. Music and dance is becoming very sexual and I haven’t been thinking like this for that long. While on Twitter I stumbled

These names all refer to dances that emerged from the blending of various African cultural groups during the period of enslavement” (Oliver 37). Before the twentieth century, there was the 1800’s but mainly in the 1830’s, the black sociocultural dances had been very popular mainly for the white audiences because of the minstrel shows. With minstrel shows, it was a different form of theatrical entertainment that diminished black people. It is also called blackface that the performers, who were white, would cover their faces black with either grease or burnt cork. They then would perform overdramatically of what they saw their version of black dancers, mainly what they saw on the plantations.

I must say that my hole spring quarter has been dedicated to deepening my overall understanding of West-African dance alone. In preparation this to study with the Urban Bush this summer I wanted to make sure that I was able to develop a stronger foundation in my West-African dance technique this quarter. My Mondays and Wednesday from 2:00-6:30 were dedicated to Professor Parker's ( Makeda- Kumasi) West-African dancing and drumming classes held at UCR. I also seeked outside the classroom to gain a community experience of this dance genre so that I could compare and contrast the similarities and differences I found. My goals were to truly embody the many elements that are associated in this dance genre. In my discoveries I was able to

Modern Dance is a free expressive way style of dancing that was developed in the early 20th century as an insurgent against ballet. Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, and Ruth St. Denis were pioneers who discovered and created modern dance in the United States. Modern dance also spread to other countries like Germany and Greece but in the early 20th century it was taught so much differently. In addition, when Modern dance was taught around the 1950’s you noticed that the clothing style and the choreography began to change. Lastly, modern dance today is one of the most well known style of dance that is easy to learn.

In this essay, I will be examining the musical genre of Afrobeat which was created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Afrobeat first came to be in the late 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement in America. Fela Kuti a Nigerian, was able to create a genre that has change the way we view music today. Afrobeat is made up of two different words, “Afro” and “Beat”. “Afro” correlates with “African organized sound while beat is a rhythmic counting pattern in relation to such music” (Oikelome, 2013). Therefore, the meaning of Afrobeat is the unique African rhythmic patterns of such music. The coming of this genre is very interesting since the man behind it has quite a story.