Black American Popular Dance: Selected Reading List

I think what kinds of dances we teach, and how we teach them, is important. I teach forms and techniques, that, like me, are both Inside and Outside of the dominant norms of the dance industry. I’m interested in lineage, source, and midrash, the Jewish practice of critical commentary on and around a historical text.

In the history classroom, the dance studio, and on stage, I prioritize teaching skills and strategies to help students grow as people, dancers, and community members. My work is powered by my continuous learning about the social history behind forms of dance and seeking to uplift the intersection of history, identity, and performance. I  give young dancers and thinkers tools to identify cultural hegemonies/power structures and the means to joyfully express themselves outside of the status quo.

My focus on the diasporic, the folk, the vernacular, the improvised, and the collective, is emboldened by an academic and artistic study of the nation, the classical, the canon, and the codified. Our pedagogy is just as critical as our content as a technology of power. 

Moreover, as both a clown and a jazz dancer, I quite literally teach dancers to talk; to speak up, to sing together, and to scat their own songs. I teach not only in lines, but in circles, processions, and partnerships, to support various modes of learning in the studio and in the classroom. 

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In the black vernacular, mimicry, musicality, expressiveness, and performing for the group offer built-in learning and teaching tools. I use them to teach vernacular jazz. These same tools are central to how I teach Flying Low & Passing Through, in alignment with the teaching methods of the technique originator David Zambrano, with whom I have trained extensively. I teach Zambrano’s work not as a disciple, but rather as a critical enthusiast.

- Mimicry or ‘following’ teaches listening and one-ups-man-ship, without relying on spoken language. Mimicry, especially in relationship to rhythm and style, can become a tool for collectivity. 

- Scatting and singing teach how to map movement into a groove. They are aural tools for self-evaluation without a mirror. Access to the voice facilitates access to one's whole body. 

- Each-One-Teach-One: Students work peer to peer to troubleshoot material together. Each-one-teach-one also embodies pedagogical responsibility as each student becomes responsible for knowing how to transmit the material to another. 

- Center of Attention: Encircling a student with the full class’ attention to witness a student perform material, or articulate a question. The dancer performing for the group is practicing performance under pressure, like in a jam/cypher, as well as the skill of incorporating feedback on the spot. This practice normalizes struggling to ‘get it.’ While it can be scary at first, it becomes a powerful learning opportunity and builds more compassionate and articulate dancers and teachers.

Collaborative dance-making with young people — undergraduates or high schoolers — can be transformative and empowering for the participants and the audience. I care about the cultural capital (stories, references, friendships) young people carry. I am passionate about using this material in an environment of consent and creativity to express something new, and usually, quite hilarious and profound.

Photos courtesy of Concord Academy (Cole +Kiera Photography) and California Institute of the Arts.