During the interwar period, African-American artists provided new forms of stage dances in theatres. In an attempt to break from tap-dancing and variety shows, they started considering dance as a place of social demand and racial protest, cultural mix and memory, and representation of the Diaspora. Later generations kept revisiting these themes and enriching the repertoire, their choreographies echoing the many upheavals: mobilisation for the war, struggle for the civil rights and the Black Power movement, the demands of feminists and homosexuals and the increasing multiculturalism in this age of globalisation.
This book gives an overview of the numerous courses taken by African-American choreographers and dancers in the 20th century. Their creations reflect their experience of modern life and question the complex role played by the racial issue in American culture.