What is African American or black dance?
According to Iris Rosa, director of the African American Dance Company at Indiana University Bloomington, African Americans have been involved in mainstream modern dance since about 1929. “They wanted to be able to illustrate through performance, the performing arts and dance the experiences of African Americans and get away from the ‘slave dances’ and minstrel shows and what people see today as degrading types of performances,” she said. African Americans were drawn to modern dance’s breakaway from the linear movement patterns and other aspects of traditional ballet, in order to be more expressive. It today draws from all other forms of dance, including jazz, ethnic traditions, tap and even ballet. “People can use and infuse all of those forms of dance in order to relate the experience,” she said. “I tell stories through dance. Being able to tell stories through dance is being able to fuse many different types of movement together in order to be able to tell that story and that experi
