Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
While listening to Nina Simone's version of "Strange Fruit" and watching Watson perform, there's a better element of interpretation concerning the viewer.
Primus' choreography is done in a big loop, representing the vicious circle of racism that affects Black lives. Watson is constantly being brought to her knees, falling, getting back up, falling again.
She also keeps her gaze and head up throughout the dance, keeping a hopeful vision of equality and peace throughout the performance.
This dance, as well as the poem, depict the struggles of Black Americans as they are beaten and/or killed and discarded, like an odd piece of fruit.
"I didn't create 'Strange Fruit' for a dancer," Primus explains. "I created it to make a statement within our society, within our world. And therefore, it was made with my body. When I danced it, I wasn't male or female. I wasn't the wind, I wasn't a tree. I was a concept."
During an interview, Primus was asked how she was able to make political statements through dance at such a young age.
She answered "It was like a mandate. It was something I had to do. . . . I was given a body strong enough, I was given the schooling, I was given the people (to help me) and the dreams. And this is the work I was meant to do: to show the dignity, beauty and strength in the heritage of peoples of African ancestry."
Works Cited:
*
Pearl Primus was born in 1919 in Trindad and moved to New York with her family at the age of two. With ambitions to become a doctor, Primus received an excellent education, excelling both academically and artistically, writing eloquent prose and poetry and dancing, but her dreams were deferred due to racism. Instead, she turned to dance, receiving a scholarship to the New Dance Group, a performing art center in New York.
*http://www.anb.org/articles/18/18-03427.html
*http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-24/entertainment/ca-49822_1_modern-dance/3
*http://www.danceheritage.org/primus.html
*http://www.mamboso.net/primus/summary_2.html
*http://kdcah.org/katherine-dunham-biography/
* http://www.pbs.org/wnet/freetodance/biographies/primus.html
*http://kdcah.org/katherine-dunham-biography/
*All videos courtsey of Youtube.
Dunham was born in Chicago, IL in 1909. She did her first dance performance at age eight but it was only to raise money. Dunham had planned on becoming a teacher and was the first African-American woman to attend the University of Chicago, receiving a bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology.
During this time, Dunham became a student of the Russian dancer, Ludmilla Speranzeva and they did many performances together. One was attended by Mrs. Alfred Rosenwald Stern, whom was so impressed, that she offered Dunham money from the Rosenwald to further her studies in dance. Dunham took it and studied for two years in The Caribbean.
Primus was a considered a political artist, known for energy, both physically and mentally. When she was young, she met leftists at a summer camp, including Paul Robeson, who encouraged her artist talents. Primus proved to not only be a talented dancer, but driven in social awareness as she incorporate African history and movement in her dance.
Throughout the 40s, she interpreted work by Black artists, incorporating it into her dance. She interpreted Langston Hughes "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" as well as "Strange Fruit" a poem by Lewis Allen.
Dunham changed American choerography forever. With her anthropology background, she incorporated the roots of Black dance and folk music by channeling the spirituality and rituals of the Caribbean and Brazilian dance. Through this, Dunham showed how beautiful, necessary and important Black dance was.
Katherine Dunham "Stormy Weather,."