Black dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970 / With a foreword by Katherine Dunham.

Bibliography: p. 329-352.

serious attempts to recapture the elements of ehnic dance, to present black ballet to develop a black modern dance on the basis of its incomparably rich heritage, and to deal honestly in dance terms eith the psychological and social realities of the modern black world. All in all, it is a comprehensive look at a fascinating and complex subject. Noth the least of its excellences is its bibliography, which in its variety and completeness may open new areas to specialized study.

The first section of the book deal in fascinating detail with the inhuman slabeship conditions under which African natives were forced to dance. The earliest dance steps and instruments are traced to the Caribbean, where African customs were allowed to flourish more freely than in the United States. The origins of the banjo, certain mascaras-line instruments, and various kinds of drums are explored. The questions of Voodoo dance and the conflicting reports on it dominate a special section on sacred dance. The author then discusses slave life on American plantations. There are fascinating sections on early forms of such slave dances as the Pigeon Wing, Jg, Cake-Walk, and Buzzard Lope, the Westernized dances of the house slaves, Ring-Shouts, and sacred dances. A special section discusses nineteenth-century New Orleans, with its remarkable social stratification, quadroon balls,West Indian traditions, and the dances of its Congo Square and Voodoo queens. The later development of the Jim Crow dances from Thomas Rice to the vurlesques and minstrel shos forms one of the most poignant chapters in black history, and there is discussion of the black reviews of such stars as Bert Williams, George Walker, Florence Mills, Josephine Baker, and Bill Robinson. In her final chapters, the author deals fully eith the development of black concert dance