Date of Award
Spring 5-5-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Dance
First Advisor
Maura Nguyen Donohue
Second Advisor
James Cantres
Academic Program Adviser
Maura Nguyen Donohue
Abstract
The horrors inflicted on Black bodies, souls, and spirits in the United States during the transatlantic slave trade, the Jim Crow era, and the current era (2023) have a lasting legacy of trauma metabolized through the body and transmuted generationally. Jones uses this data to contextualize the work of Black dance artists as hermeneutic phenomena in which the Black dance artist is a hermeneut tasked with delivering a message of the Black body/spirit complex: “I AM HUMAN. DO NOT KILL ME.” This paper examines how Black dance artists frequently petition for their survival — incessantly subjugated to the interpreter’s empathy, understanding, and acknowledgment of the historical context of Blackness in the United States of America.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Darvejon A., "Blacklash: Phenomenological Hermeneutics in Black Dance" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1029
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, American Studies Commons, Dance Commons, Folklore Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons
Comments
Blacklash: https://youtu.be/8ffmIQeMKbQ
Susurrations: https://youtu.be/qnV39U_7LiI