"Survival of African cultural traditions in the New World has been a subject of academic study for years, particularly the traditions of African dance, music, and song. Yet the dance culture of blacks in London has been largely neglected. This book attempts to examine the history of black dance culture in London during the 18th and 19th centuries"--Provided by publisher.

Black Agents Provocateurs: 250 Years of Black British Writing, History and the Law, 1770-2020 is a comprehensive analysis the invaluable contributions that black writers in Britain have made to British society over the last 250 years. This book closely examines the lives, trials and works of: British slaves in the eighteenth century, black authors, historians and medics in the nineteenth century, and black poets, playwrights, novelists and intellectuals in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It also highlights their contributions to legal changes, such as the Abolition of Slavery Act (1833), the Criminal Appeal Act (1907) and the Race Relations Act (1965), as well as the adverse effects that laws such as the Criminal Evidence Act (1984), the Asylum and Immigration Acts (1996) and the Coronavirus Act (2020) have had upon black lives in Britain.

From its origins in Africa to its influence on ballet and modern dance, Thorpe presents the most comprehensive history of black dance available today. 75 photographs.

Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies brings into conversation two fields—Early Modern Studies and Black Studies—that traditionally have had little to say to each other. This disconnect is the product of current scholarly assumptions about a lack of archival evidence that limits what we can say about those of African descent before modernity. This volume posits that the limitations are not in the archives, but in the methods we have constructed for locating and examining those archives. The essays that make up this volume offer new critical approaches to black African agency and the conceptualization of blackness in early modern literary works, historical documents, material and visual cultures, and performance culture. Ultimately, this critical anthology revises current understandings about racial discourse and the cultural contributions of black Africans in early modernity and in the present across the globe.

This book explores Black British dance from a number of previously-untold perspectives. Bringing together the voices of dance-artists, scholars, teachers and choreographers, it looks at a range of performing arts from dancehall to ballet, providing valuable insights into dance theory, performance, pedagogy, identity and culture. It challenges the presumption that Blackness, Britishness or dance are monolithic entities, instead arguing that all three are living networks created by rich histories, diverse faces and infinite future possibilities. Through a variety of critical and creative essays, this book suggests a widening of our conceptions of what British dance looks like, where it appears, and who is involved in its creation.

This book provides scholars and non-specialists alike with a roadmap for effectively conducting culturally aware, historically relevant research on African dance and on any dance style that contains African elements. This book explains why Western research paradigms are inadequate for research on Africana dance. It exposes the value of utilizing an appropriate research paradigm that offers researchers a broader perspective and a transparent, unfettered process for analysis in under-researched topics such as African and African diaspora dance styles. Researchers are introduced to the African dance aesthetic, characteristically African body movements, definitions of steps, understandings within African culture, and a host of other jewels that facilitate a deeper grasp on the subject and refine the quality of the scholar’s research, its findings, and its proficiency. This book will be of great interest to scholars of African dance studies.