Black dance reading list
We have put together a list of books about general histories of Black dancers and Black dancing, in both the UK and US.
A Little Devil in America: In praise of Black performance by Hanif Abdurraqib (2022)
Hanif Abdurraqib has written a stirring meditation on Black performance in the modern age, in which culture, history and his own lived experience collide. Buy a copy.
Fire Under My Feet: History, race, and agency in African diaspora dance edited by Ofosuwa M. Abiola (2022)
This book makes a significant contribution to dance and African diaspora scholarship simultaneously. Buy a copy.
Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist aesthetics and equity in the Twenty-first century edited by Lindsay Guarino, Carlos R. A. Jones and Wendy Oliver (2022)
Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture. Buy a copy.
(Re:) Claiming Ballet edited by Adesola Akinleye (2021)
This collection looks beyond the mainstream, bringing to light the overlooked influences that continue to inform the culture of ballet. Buy a copy.
Dance on the Historically Black College Campus: The familiar and the foreign by Wanda K. W. Ebright; with contributions by Gary C. Guffey (2019)
This book explores the history of dance on the historically black college and university (HBCU) campus, casting a first light on the historical practices and current state of college dance program practice in HBCUs. Buy a copy.
Identity and Choreographic Practice edited by Pawlet Brookes (2018)
This book examines how culture and training influence choreographic vocabulary, and also touches upon how identity is revealed in practice. Buy a copy.
Dancing Bahia: Essays on Afro-Brazilian dance, education, memory, and race edited by Lucía M. Suarez, Amelia Conrado, and Yvonne Daniel (2018)
This book draws together the work of leading scholars, artists, and dance activists from Brazil, Canada and the United States to examine the particular ways in which dance has responded to socio-political notions of race and community, resisting stereotypes, and redefining African diaspora and Afro-Brazilian traditions. Buy a copy.
Ancestral Voices: Dance dialogues edited by Germaine Acogny; with a preface by Pawlet Brookes (2018)
This book is an exploration of the roots of contemporary dance styles, examining contemporary dance techniques from the African and African Caribbean Diaspora with the pioneers who have developed them. Buy a copy.
Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied practices edited by Adesola Akinleye (2018)
This book explores Black British dance from a number of previously-untold perspectives. Bringing together the voices of dance artists, scholars, teachers and choreographers, it looks at a range of performing arts from dancehall to ballet, providing valuable insights into dance theory, performance, pedagogy, identity and culture. Buy a copy.
Voicing Black Dance : The British Experience by Funmi Adewole, Dick Matchett and Colin Prescod
This is a collection of interviews with, and essays by, writers on and practitioners of many varied manifestations of Black dance in Britain from the 1930s to the 1990s. It is particularly covers the terrible false assumptions made by people and provides a vivid historical picture of the state of play in the late 20th century. Buy a copy.
Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied practices by Adesola Akinleye
This book explores Black British dance from a number of previously-untold perspectives. Bringing together the voices of dance-artists, scholars, teachers and choreographers, it looks at a range of performing arts from dancehall to ballet, providing valuable insights into dance theory, performance, pedagogy, identity and culture. Buy a copy.
Black Dance in the UK : Articles and Interviews by Deborah Baddoo and Helen Roberts
This collection of articles and interviews provides a variety of perspectives on the development of black dance in the UK and examines the work of a range of black performers. The collection was compiled on behalf of the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora. Buy a copy.
Hidden Movement : Contemporary Voices of Black British Dance by Pawlet Brookes
The result of an enlightening conference, held as part of Let’s Dance International Festival 2013, in Leicester, this book explores the seldom told history of Black Dance across the UK. It features contributions from leading professionals, researchers and dancers. Buy a copy.
Black Women in Dance : Stepping Out of the Barriers by Pawlet Brookes
From early trailblazers to contemporary ground breakers, Black Women in Dance: Stepping Out of the Barriers, is an exciting publication celebrating and exploring the impact that Black women have made on the international dance ecology. This publication explores topics from the need for institutions and infrastructure to support work from African and African-Caribbean artists, and the key role of women within these organisations, to artists’ journeys taken to develop new aesthetics and an individual choreographic voice. Buy a copy.
Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to today by Lynne Fauley Emery
A complete history of black dance forms, this book explores folk, ballet, jazz, tap, Broadway/Hollywood, disco, and breakdancing. An ultimate research tool, it includes portraits of hundreds of important black dancers and choreographers. Buy a copy.
The Black Dancing Body : A geography from coon to cool by Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts an unorthodox history by mapping the geography of the black dancing body and showing its central place in our culture. Buy a copy.
Black Dance in America: A history through its people by James Haskins
A history of African-American dance in the United States discusses such celebrated artists as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Katherine Dunham, Arthur Mitchell, and others who were influential in the dance world. Buy a copy.
Modern Dance, Negro Dance : Race in motion by Susan Manning
This is is the first book to bring together two vibrant strains of American dance in the modern era. Buy a copy.
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity by Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young
This book brings together scholars from across the globe in an investigation of what it means to define oneself in an ethnic category and how this category is performed and represented by dance as an ethnicity. Buy a copy.
Black dance by Edward Thorpe
This is a study of Black dance from its origins in Africa, in the slave songs and dances of the Caribbean and the American South through the minstrel shows and burlesque theatres of the 1980s and 90s. Buy a copy.