Description: This book explores a black female dancer's personal journey over four decades across three continents and numerous countries, including different parts of the U.S. It is personal musings about the place of dance and race in Halifu Osumare's life across time and space that defined her life choices and career path.
Brief description: Halifu Osumare, professor emerita of African American and African Studies at the University of California, Davis, is the author of The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip-Hop and The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves.
Review Quotes:
"A detailed picture of a life devoted to artistry, advocacy and profound intellectual inquiry centered on the histories, traditions and sociopolitical contexts of African Diaspora dance. . . . Our knowledge is deepened about not only the navigations around building a life as a black female dancer/scholar, but also the shifting meanings of blackness, black bodies, gender and intercultural encounter."--British Journal of Aesthetics
"Osumare has engaged with black dance as performer, choreographer, educator, arts administrator, researcher, and activist in the United States, Africa, and Europe, and through multiple careers. In this equal parts memoir, autoethnography, history, encyclopedic catalog, and sociocultural analysis, she traces her activities from the 1960s through the late 1990s, as she becomes a tenacious advocate for black dance. . . . An eclectic mélange."--Library Journal
"A lovely example for any dance student to see that art does not exist in a vacuum but is a response to and reflection of artists' experiences, conflicts, and boundaries created by themselves or society."--Journal of Dance Education
"Explores the relationship between dance and culture from the perspective of someone who celebrated both, intertwined."--Sacramento Bee
"[Osumare] recounts four decades' worth of poignant personal experiences using dance as a tool for social change and justice. . . . Her perspective on black dance in America will benefit the whole dance community."--Dance Teacher
"Expands the memoir genre, makes a strong argument for the importance of the West Coast in the development of mid-twentieth-century dance, and greatly expands our understanding of dance's role in the Black Arts Movement. A tremendous resource for the field of dance studies' big names."--Dance Research Journal