Black Beauty: Concert Dance in the Africanist Grain

Black Beauty: Concert Dance in the Africanist Grain Aesthetics in dance, and especially the terms of "beauty" as they might relate to African American artistry, remain extremely difficult to discuss. How can aesthetic theory be engaged in relation to African American dance practice? What sorts of aesthetic imperatives surround African American dance and how does black performance make sense of these imperatives?" Who names the quality of performance, or who determines that a performance may be accurately recognized as "black? More than this, how can African American dance participate on its own terms in a discourse of "beauty?" This courses focuses on the work of four African American choreographers, Donald Byrd (b. 1949), Ulysses Dove (1947- 1996), Bebe Miller (1950 - ), and Abdel Salaam (b. 1949). Through our work, we will uncover critical possibilities aligning dance performance with particular aesthetic theory relevant to its documentation and interpretation. This course satisfies the Division I distribution requirement. REA,WRI,PRS,MCP