Hot Feet and Social Change: African Dance and Diaspora Communities, Paperback

The popularity and profile of African dance have exploded across the African diaspora in the last fifty years. Hot Feet and Social Change presents traditionalists, neo-traditionalists, and contemporary artists, teachers, and scholars telling some of the thousands of stories lived and learned by people in the field. Concentrating on eight major cities in the United States, the essays explode myths about African dance while demonstrating its power to awaken identity, self-worth, and community respect. These voices of experience share personal accounts of living African traditions, their first encounters with and ultimate embrace of dance, and what teaching African-based dance have meant to them and their communities. Throughout, the editors alert readers to established and ongoing research, and provide links to critical contributions by African and Caribbean dance experts.Contributors: Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Abby Carlozzo, Steven Cornelius, Yvonne Daniel, Charles "Chuck" Davis, Esailama G. A. Diouf, Indira Etwaroo, Habib Iddrisu, Julie B. Johnson, C. Kemal Nance, Halifu Osumare, Amaniyea Payne, William Serrano-Franklin, and Kariamu Welsh

Kariamu Welsh is Professor Emerita of Dance at Temple University. Her books include Umfundalai: An African Dance Technique. Esailama G. A. Diouf is the founding director of Bisemi Foundation Inc. and the Arts and Culture Consultant at the San Francisco Foundation. Yvonne Daniel is Professor Emerita of Dance and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. Her books include Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candombl and Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship.