Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts

Title: Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts

Author: Brenda Dixon Gottschild

Publisher: Praeger

Publication Year: 1998

ISBN: 978-0275963736

This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been invisibilized by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating the Africanist presence as a conditioning factor in shaping American performance, onstage and in everyday life. She examines the Africanist presence in American dance forms particularly in George Balanchine's Americanized style of ballet, (post)modern dance, and blackface minstrelsy. Hip hop culture and rap are related to contemporary performance, showing how a disenfranchised culture affects the culture in power.