AFRICAN-DERIVED DANCE PEDAGOGY IN CHICAGO AND NEW YORK CITY, 1931-1946: THE DANCE GRIOTS-READING THE INVISIBLE SCRIPT

"In the chapters that follow, I illustrate the dance pedagogy created by Black dance artists in the 1930s and 1940s in America. I discuss the ways in which this dance instruction undergirded the emergence of the Black concert dance construct, which manifested in the late 1950s and took on a definitive global presence in the 1960s with the popularity of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. In this discussion, I document the dance contributions of dance pioneer Katherine Dunham and her peers, whose works blazed a trail for many contemporary dance artists." -Dr. Elgie Gaynell Sherrod