Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century

Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots.

The Essential Guide to Jazz Dance

The Essential Guide to Jazz Dance offers a practical and uncomplicated overview to the multi-layered history, practices and development of jazz dance as a creative and artistic dance form.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeNovember 5, 2019book, in print, jazz history, dollie henry, Paul Jenkins, british, technique

Katherine Dunham: Dance and The African Diaspora

Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora makes the argument that Dunham was more than a dancer-she was an intellectual and activist committed to using dance to fight for racial justice.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeMay 12, 2019book, in print, biography, jazz history, Dunham, Katherine Dunham

Stompin' at The Savoy: The Story of Norma Miller

Through extensive interviews with jazz dancer Norma Miller, acclaimed author and filmmaker Alan Govenar captures the vitality, wry humor, and indomitable spirit of an American treasure.

Modern Moves: Dancing Race during the Ragtime and Jazz Eras

Modern Moves traces the movement of American social dance styles between black and white cultural groups and between immigrant and migrant communities during the early twentieth century.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeSeptember 16, 2018book, in print, jazz history, danielle robinson, history, ragtime

Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins

Class Act tells of Cholly's boyhood and coming of age, his entry into the dance world of New York City, his performing triumphs and personal tragedies, and the career transformations that won him gold records and a Tony for choreographing Black and Blue on Broadway.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeSeptember 9, 2018book, in print, biography, jazz history, autobiography, motown, tap, cholly atkins, jaqui malone

Image of Perfection: The Freestyle Dance of Matt Mattox

An analysis of the technique of Matt Mattox.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeAugust 29, 2018book, in print, essays, bob boross, jazz history, matt mattox, frank hatchett

Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era

Scholarly writing on AfricanAmerican performers in vaudeville era by by one of the foremost African American dance critics of our day.

The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool

Written by Brenda Dixon Gottschild, one of the foremost American dance critics of our day, The Black Dancing Body is a key to the ineffable rhythms and movement of dance in America.

Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts

This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture.

Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance

Bringing together issues of race, gender, politics, history, and dance, Dancing Many Drums ranges widely, including discussions of dance instruction songs, the blues aesthetic, and Katherine Dunham’s controversial ballet about lynching, Southland.

Aesthetic of the Cool

This book brings together all Thompson’s writings on the cool, some hitherto unpublished, many in out-of-print and hard-to-find publications.

Swinging at The Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer

The dancer and choreographer chronicles her life and provides a history of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and its influence on American culture.

Tap and Jazz

Tap and Jazz by Nikki Gamble is overview of jazz and tap dance history, performance, and production.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeAugust 29, 2018book, in print, jazz history, tap, nikki gamble, social dance, dance appreciation

Steppin' on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance

Former dancer Jacqui Malone throws a fresh spotlight on the cultural history of black dance.

Jookin: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture

Focusing on ten African-American dance arenas from the period of enslavement to the mid-twentieth century, this book explores the jooks, honky-tonks, rent parties, and after-hours joints as well as the licensed membership clubs, dance halls, cabarets, and the dances of the black elite.

Jazz Dance

Jazz Dance by Harriet R. Lihs, published by American Press is out of print.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeAugust 28, 2018book, out of print, instruction, jazz history, technique, harriet lihs

Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance

The late Marshall Stearns was author of The Story of Jazz, and was the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival and Institute of Jazz Studies. He died in 1966 while completing his book Jazz Dance co-authored by his wife Jean. Jean Stearns is an authority on jazz and assisted her late husband Marshall in researching and writing Jazz Dance.

Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches

Featuring discussions of such dancers and choreographers as Bob Fosse and Katherine Dunham, as well as analyses of how the form’s vocabulary differs from ballet, this complex and compelling history captures the very essence of jazz dance.

Jazz Dance

Jazz Dance by Wendy Garofoli, published by Capstone Press is out of print.

PublicationsMelanie GeorgeAugust 28, 2018book, out of print, technique, instruction, wendy garofoli, jazz history

directory