Black History Contributions in the Arts Sports Science and More Dvd
Feb is recognised every bit Black History Month in the United States. Since the country'southward bicentennial in 1976, Blackness History Month has been an official designation to honour and remember the meaning and immeasurable impact African Americans have had on the nation. President Gerald Ford said the almanac observance was to "laurels the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans."
Here, Trip the light fantastic toe Informa reflects on the black dancers who significantly impacted the American dance scene, too as the major companies who pioneered a new earth where black dancers could exist seen as equal artists.
Main Juba (1825-1852)
It's probable many dancers accept never heard of Principal Juba due to the fact that his important dance contributions sadly go hand-in-hand with performances that reiterated racist stereotyping. He performed in minstrel shows, an American entertainment in the 19th century that consisted of comic skits and dancing in greasepaint.
Still, what nigh people look at skeptically – a blackness freeman performing in minstrel shows that lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy and overly happy-become-lucky – was actually an achievement for a black man in his time. In the antebellum era when blacks were not allowed to perform with whites, Master Juba was the first to attain credence and notoriety every bit an entertainer. In his career he performed with four well-known early on minstrel companies and later became the starting time departer black dancer, moving to Europe and never returning to the U.s. – a huge accomplishment.
Yet perhaps virtually significantly, Master Juba (who was legally named William Henry Lane) was the starting time known dancer to combine quick footwork with traditional African rhythms, leading to the cosmos of tap trip the light fantastic toe and even elements of step dancing.
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (1878-1949)
While many were probably new to Principal Juba, I'g fairly sure well-nigh have heard of Beak "Bojangles" Robinson. Known as the father of tap dance, Robinson is nearly famous for his appearance in the widely popular movies starring kid actress Shirley Temple. In his career, Robinson appeared in a full of 14 films and six Broadway shows, sometimes in prominent roles – an enormous triumph for a black histrion in his day.
In improver, Robinson was the first black solo performer to star on white vaudeville circuits, where he was a headliner for iv decades.
Robinson was known for gentle, intentional movement combined with austere musicality.
Asadata Dafora (1890-1965)
Asadata Dafora was a dance pioneer in bringing accurate West African culture to audiences in the Usa. A dance grade that was about unheard-of at the time, African dance opened a door to a new study of cultural dance and performance.
Originally from Sierra Leone, Dafora starting time came to the states in 1929. He soon thereafter formed Shogola Oloba, a dance and singers troupe, to nowadays movement-based dramas based on West African myth and lore. Dafora was the start known creative person who endeavored to present accurate African forms outside a tribal setting. He influenced artists like Pearl Primus who later incorporated African elements into her choreography.
John Bubbling, a 2002 Inductee into the American Tap Dance Foundation's International Tap Dance Hall of Fame. Photograph courtesy of ATDF.
John W. Bubbling (1902-1986)
Like Robinson, vocalist and dancer John W. Bubbling made significant strides in the progression and commercialization of tap. Starting his career at 10 years onetime, Bubbles joined 6-yr-old dancer "Buck" Washington to create a singing-dancing-comedy act. With Buck, Bubbling became very pop. The two performed an act in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 and became the kickoff black artists to perform in New York's acclaimed Radio Metropolis Music Hall.
Bubbles, who is perhaps all-time known for performing as Sportin' Life in George Gershwin's 1935 production Porgy and Bess, later went on to perform in Harlem's famous Hoofers Order, which led to Broadway gigs, which led to opportunities in Hollywood.
Bubbles is said to exist the outset dancer to fuse jazz dance with tap, a frontrunner for many jazz-tap companies that be today. He created off-beats and in turn, contradistinct accents, phrasing and timing.
Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
One of the first black women to leave her mark on the dance world, Josephine Baker's legacy is synonymous with sensuality, bravery and uninhibited passion. Built-in in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker grew upward with little and quickly developed an independent spirit, learning to provide for herself and make her ain way. This gratis and bold behavior led her to perform across the country with The Jones Family unit Band and The Dixie Steppers in 1919. By the fourth dimension she sashayed onto a Paris stage during the 1920s, she was confident in her abilities and performed with a comic, yet sensual entreatment that took Europe by storm.
Famous for barely-at that place dresses and modernized motion, Baker went on to perform and choreograph for 50 years in Europe. Although racism in the States often restricted her from gaining the same renown at home as she did away, Baker fought segregation through organizations similar the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization actually named May 20 "Josephine Bakery Day" in honor of her efforts.
In her lifetime, information technology is said she received approximately 1,500 marriage proposals and countless gifts from admirers, including luxury cars. On the 24-hour interval of her funeral, more than than 20,000 people crowded the streets of Paris to watch the procession on its way to the church. Bakery was the kickoff American woman buried in France with armed services honors.
Katherine Dunham (1909-2006)
Some trip the light fantastic toe historians have named Katherine Dunham the most important women of African American trip the light fantastic. Dunham was ane of the showtime modernistic dance pioneers in her own right, combining cultural, grounded dance movements with elements of ballet.
Dunham, who was born in Illinois, began her formal study of dance in Chicago where she trained with modern and contemporary ballet pioneers while simultaneously studying anthropology. In the 1930s, she completed a 10-month investigation into the dance cultures of the Caribbean. She brought what she learned dorsum to America, developing a new revolutionary aesthetic that merged the rhythms of cultural dances with certain components of ballet.
For 2 decades, from the 1940s to the 1960s, Dunham's dance company toured the world – from the United States to Europe to Latin America to Asia and Australia. She besides founded a school to teach her technique in New York.
Honi Coles (1911-1992) and Charles "Cholly" Atkins (1913-2003)
Performers Honi Coles and Charles "Cholly" Atkins are paired together because of their contribution to trip the light fantastic as longtime tap dance partners. After serving in World War II, Cholly, who already had significant experience as a tap dancer, formed his most celebrated partnership yet with high-speed and cocky-taught rhythm tap dancer, Charles "Honi" Coles.
Teamed up, the duo significantly advanced and promoted the art of rhythm tap dancing. They toured with the big bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Cab Calloway, as well as made short films for goggle box. The pair was significantly well known for their wearisome soft-shoe routine Taking a Take chances on Love. In 1965, they were fifty-fifty featured in a CBS-TV Camera Iii plan.
From this notoriety, Cholly somewhen became staff choreographer for Motown Records from 1965-1971. He created a new dance genre, vocal choreography, which eventually won him recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993. On the other paw, Coles made information technology big on Broadway, winning a Tony laurels in 1983 for his role in My One and Just and later, a National Medal of Arts for his contribution to trip the light fantastic toe.
Fayard Nicholas (1914-2006) and Harold Nicholas (1921-2000)
Improve known as "The Nicholas Brothers," Fayard and Harold Nicholas both had unique careers every bit tap and "flash" dancers. They got their first big gig at the Cotton wool Society in 1932, with Fayard at 18 and Harold at but xi years one-time. Following appearances with big bands, they became very successful in Hollywood.
The Nicholas Brothers lite up the screen in movies like Child Millions (1934), Downwardly Argentine Manner (1940), Stormy Weather (1943), and St. Louis Woman (1946). They even performed in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and Babes in Arms.
Earlier they retired, Fayard contributed choreography to the 1989 production of Black and Blue and Harold performed as office of the 1982 Sophisticated Ladies national tour and in The Tap Dance Child on Broadway in 1986.
The brothers take received Kennedy Center Honors and have had the documentary The Nicholas Brothers: Nosotros Trip the light fantastic and Sing fabricated in their honor.
A biography on the life of Janet Collins was published a few years agone by trip the light fantastic toe historian Yael Tamar Lewin. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.
Janet Collins (1917-2003)
Janet Collins, who died just a few years ago in Fort Worth, Texas, was a forerunner for blackness female ballet dancers. She was one of very few black women to become prominent in American classical ballet in the 1950s, inspiring a generation and giving hope for a more equal society.
Collins began dancing in Los Angeles and eventually relocated to New York. Her large debut was to her own choreography in 1949 on a shared program at the 92nd Street Y. She was well received, beingness praised for her sharp, technical precision. After performing on Broadway in the Cole Porter musical Out of This World, she was hired as a primary dancer at the Metropolitan Opera Business firm in the early 1950s.
Throughout her career, Collins also danced alongside Katherine Dunham and performed with the Dunham company in the 1943 film musical Stormy Weather.
She danced a solo choreographed past Jack Cole in the 1946 flick The Thrill of Brazil, and even toured with Talley Beatty in a nightclub act.
In recognition of Collins' dandy work, her renowned cousin Carmen De Lavallade started the Janet Collins Fellowship.
Pearl Primus (1919-1994)
If anyone could contest Dunham's title of being the "grande dame of African American dance," it would be dancer, choreographer, director and activist Pearl Primus. Primus is as of import, as she is known to have facilitated a deeper appreciation for and understanding of traditional African dance.
With the help of a grant, Primus spent over a yr in Africa in 1948, gathering materials and detailing tribal dances that were rapidly slipping into obscurity. She returned to the U.Due south. and established the Pearl Primus School of Central Trip the light fantastic. Through her teaching and performances, she not only helped to promote African dance equally an art form worthy of study and performance, just to disprove myths of savagery.
In addition to many other accomplishments, she became the director of the African Performing Arts Eye in Liberia in 1961, the first organization of its kind on the African continent.
Alvin Ailey (1931-1989)/ Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1958-now)
Alvin Ailey was first introduced to dance in Los Angeles by performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. He began his formal dance training with an introduction to Lester Horton'due south classes. Horton, the founder of one of the first racially-integrated dance companies in the state, became a mentor for Ailey as he embarked on his professional person career.
After Horton's death in 1953, Ailey became Director of the Lester Horton Dance Theater and began to choreograph his own works.
In 1958, he founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, now a globe-class and internationally renowned dance company. He established the Alvin Ailey American Trip the light fantastic Center (at present The Ailey School) in 1969 and formed the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (now Ailey II) in 1974.
In improver to his huge contribution to the furthering of mod dance, Ailey was a pioneer of programs promoting arts in didactics, particularly those benefiting underserved communities.
Trip the light fantastic toe Theatre of Harlem (1969-now)
Founded in 1969 shortly subsequently the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dance Theatre of Harlem was directed past the showtime black dancer at the New York City Ballet, former main Arthur Mitchell. Dance Theatre of Harlem, known every bit the oldest black classical company in continuous existence, immune and encouraged more than black ballet dancers to dance professionally.
Originally, the repertory was neoclassical in orientation with several ballets by George Balanchine. In the 1980s, more contemporary works and classics were added. The company also presented various works by black choreographers, including Geoffrey Holder, Louis Johnson, Alvin Ailey, Alonzo Male monarch, Robert Garland, also as Mitchell himself.
With many of its dancers going on to perform with bigger national companies, the Dance Theatre of Harlem has been instrumental in lowering the color bar in ballet. The company'southward schoolhouse, which Mitchell initially directed with Shook, has become an international force too as a major Harlem establishment.
*Please note: There are many other noteworthy and historic blackness dancers and companies who have impacted American dance. This is just a partial listing.
Sources:
Trip the light fantastic Heritage Coalition. "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures." world wide web.danceheritage.org/treasures.html.
American Tap Dance Foundation. "Tap Dance Hall of Fame – Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson." atdf.org/awards/bojangles.html
Official Site of Josephine Baker. "Biography." www.cmgww.com.
"Janet Collins, 86; Ballerina Was First Blackness Artist at Met Opera." Dunning, Jennifer. New York Times. May 31, 2003. world wide web.nytimes.com.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. "The Ailey Legacy." www.alvinailey.org.
Trip the light fantastic Theatre of Harlem. "Who We Are." www.dancetheatreofharlem.org.
Source: https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/music-entertainers/15-black-dancers-who-changed-american-dance/
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