What role do the African-American pioneers in American modern dance play in this context?
We can’t undertake a real understanding of African Americans in and of modern dance without reference to the larger social context, which constantly imposes — which constantly imposed, and may still impose, a kind of racial division. The fact was that what went on in the concert theatrical field was conditioned by the social etiquette. It was inadmissible in 1930 … the idea that you had blacks and whites on the same stage doing something other than comedy. Therefore, this is the framework in which the modern dance comes into being. Nevertheless, the ideas, the dance ideas came both … [to] blacks and to whites. And so we get very, very little direct crossover, but the overall climate in which these changes are taking place do, in fact, work in both areas. I think that we have to look at the very earliest pioneers of black modern dance as both having a desire to fit in while at the same time recognizing the larger social realities, and therefore they proceeded to some extent to want
