Dancing Through Life in Chains

1170 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay about the history of dance

Dance can be an outlet of energy, an expression of emotions, or simply a source of joy, but for slaves, dancing served a higher purpose. Dance served various purposes ranging from communication to self-expression to building a sense of community among individuals. Dance helped the oppressed individuals stand together to face adversity. The history of slave dancing is richly intertwined in religion and social culture and deeply based on their African heritage. Dance is the continuous movement of the body to a certain rhythm within a given area, but for slaves, dancing is often more than it appears. (Sorell 1)

Many dances of Africa came to America with individuals who were brought over during slavery, along with the defining characteristic elements of African dance expression. The two most common organizing structures of African dances were the line and the circle. Space was left by the participants, both temporal and physical, to allow for individual expression. The space left in the center of a circle dance, like a ring dance, was a whirlpool of power and spiritual energy. The individual who stepped into the allotted space demanded the surrounding community's support and attention. Music style, frenzied behavior, holy dancing, and spirit possession are all important traits of African dancing. The goal of the dances was gaining the help of the supernatural in dealing with the natural world in which they cannot control or do not understand. Complex rhythms coordinated by drum beat and emphasized by swaying or jerking bodies and stamping feet often dominated African dances. The dances often emulated people, animals, or events occurring in nature, as well as incorporating movements considered sexually suggestive by white puritanical...

... middle of paper ...

...Academic Search Complete. Web.

23. Feb. 2014.

Hering, Doris. “Tap Dance”. Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 4 Feb.

2014

Knight, Gladys L. "African American Dance." The American Mosaic: The African American

Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.

Painter, Nell Irvin. "African Americans." Reviewed by Robin D. G. Kelley. Encyclopedia

Americana. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

Prahlad, Anand. "Cakewalk." The American Mosaic: The African American Experience. ABC-CLIO,

2014. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

Sambol-Tosco, Kimberly. "Education, Arts, & Culture." Slavery and the Making of America.

Thirteen/WNET New York, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/history.html

Sorell, Walter. "Dance." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • The Lives and Work of James Earl Jones and Geoffrey Holder

    2296 Words  | 5 Pages

    Haskins, James. "Geoffrey Holder and Carmen De Lavallade." Black Dance in America. N.p.: n.p., 1990. 130-37. Print.

    Read More

  • An Emotional Slave in The Slave Dancer

    487 Words  | 1 Pages

    I found The Slave Dancer, by Paula Fox, to be a very commendable historical fiction. When I had finished reading the final sentence, I was left with a feeling of appreciation. I felt imperfect. For it easily could have been my ancestors who tortured the multitudes of helpless slaves. The Slave Dancer was a difficult book to get into, but it soon captured my interest and turned into an excellent, yet emotional, piece of literature.

    Read More

  • Cultural Summary: Character And Origin Of Samba

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 16th century African slaves began to introduce cultural dances such as the Caterere, the Embolada, the Batuque, and the Lundu to name a few.

    Read More

  • The History of Slave Music and its Impact on Modern Music

    2049 Words  | 5 Pages

    Music is an art and a wonderful gift to human race. It soothes, stimulates and makes us feel happy. It affects our moods in many different ways from lullaby to war cry for changes in the society. Music is actually distinct to different people. Above all, it has a transformational importance that is captured in its art and nature. Music draws our emotions and it has an impact of bridging different cultures across the continents. Slave songs were very vital channels through which all kind of information was conveyed both positive and negative.

    Read More

  • The Effect Of Slave Music On African American Culture

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans. First is about ​the effect of slave music on American history and African American music. The slave music’s

    Read More

  • Summary Of Thomas Defrantz's Simmering Passivity

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history, Black Americans have fought to reclaim their bodies and redefine ideas of Blackness. Much of this struggle can be attributed to the fact that Black people have not owned their own bodies for the vast majority of American history. The Black struggle to escape white labels and the fight for self-determination, Black narration, and the presentation of Black beauty are evident in dance and its evolution throughout history. In his article, "Simmering Passivity: The Black Male Body In Concert Dance," Thomas DeFrantz uses the career and choreography of Alvin Ailey to show how Black dancers in America have historically been forced to conform to White stereotypes. Conversely, Jason King and Ananya Chatterjea show in their articles “Which way is down? Improvisations on black mobility” and “Subversive Dancing: The Playful

    Read More

  • Folklorico Art Analysis

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Folklorico group presentation I was honored to observed was the “Grupo Folklorico Juventud” from North Salinas High School. I decided to attend to this presentation because I use to be part of this Folklorico group. I also enjoy watching the dances for the reason that I believe they are beyond beautiful. It is amazing how a simple dance could transmit so much information while representing a region from Mexico. From my observation experienced, I noticed every region has different movements and customs for a reason. While observing the presentation I noticed most women used long skirts to create different shapes. They usually create the eight shape, half a circle or an entire circle which is created when the dancer does an entire spin while holding and moving their skirt. The skirt is also moved in different levels, such as high, medium, and low. The two levels that are used in most of the dances is the high and the medium level. While dancing the men and women usually do the same steps and movements. All the dances include “zapateados” which are known as foot dances or stomps. The “zapateados” are usually done with different parts of the feet such as the toe, heel and the sole of the feet. The dances include “zapateados” with different sections of the feet because every part creates a different sound. Most of the dances also include jumps and turns. It is extremely important for the

    Read More

  • Music In Lawrence Levine's 'The Quest For Certainty'

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    African-American slaves may not have had the formal education that many of their white slave owners possessed, but they intuitively knew that the labor they toiled through each and every day was unjust. This dynamic of unfairness brought about a mindset in which slaves would critique the workings of slavery. To many people’s understanding, slavery was an invasively oppressive institution; Levine however, noted, “for all its horrors, slavery was never so complete a system of psychic assault that it prevented the slaves from carving out independent cultural forms” . Slave spirituals were a part of the independent cultural form that enslaved African-Americans produced; these songs had numerous functions and critiquing slavery served as one of

    Read More

  • Native American Ritual Dancing

    3050 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Ghost Dance; Ethnohistory and Revitalization. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc, 1989. Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood. “Sun Dance.”

    Read More

  • Documentary 'Rize' by David LaChapelle

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ating with each other and these are the same values that are being passed on to this generation. The dancers in South-central Los Angeles, uses this form of art to express their feelings and it a form of communicating just like their ancestors did back in there days. At the same time, it allows them to have a much deeper connection with their roots.

    Read More

  • African Dance: Malinke Harvest Dance

    351 Words  | 1 Pages

    While watching the African dance, Malinke Harvest Dance, I saw the dancers embracing their culture through their movements and the music. I enjoyed how the dance felt like a community affair. The dancers movements embodied the musicians playing, including everyone in the celebration; children, musicians, and the women. In each dance, the dancers would isolate their rib cage and move their arms in circles faster when the tempo of the music increased. Thus, this meant that the dancers would perform faster motions when the tempo would increase in the music. This was a direct correlation that I noticed throughout each set of dances. Also, each dance would start out slow through each dancer coming in with hand movements of step-touches. This was

    Read More

  • Dance Anthropology

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    I love to dance and through google and wikipedia I discovered ethnochoreology. It is the study of “ethnic” dance in it's social and cultural context. One famous dancer and pioneer who inspires me greatly is Katherine Dunham. She was able to study dance and anthropology in college and developed dance anthropology. Dance Anthropology can also be referred to as Ethnochoreology where it studies why people dance and what it means within various cultures. Since dancing have originated it has been refined and modified excessively by many different cultures to fit their form of communication or expression. Dance is not static, but instead dynamic and has the ability to change, evolve, or even fuse with other works of movement. We, humans, aren’t always

    Read More

  • A Brief History Of African Music Through The Colonial Period

    1522 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dance was also a big part in the music of West Africa. Dance was performed at ceremonies surrounding fertility, death, worship, adulthood, and other kind of certain concerns of the village.

    Read More

  • Mythology Of Indian Dance

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like many Indian arts, Indian dance also has its root in religion. Without the religious and cultural background of India, the growth and beauty of Indian dance is not possible. In ‘Natya Shastra’, there is a small story about the origin of Indian dance. According to Hindu mythology, dance first existed in heaven. There was always a constant conflict between the Asuras and the Devas for wealth and power. The Devas were tired of the Asuras’ greediness and jealousy.

    Read More

  • Dance Essay: The Art Of Dance

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Dance, the art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment. Dancing developed as a natural expression of united feeling and action.”

    Read More

More about Dancing Through Life in Chains

Open Document