| FB-56469-12 | Research Programs: Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | John Oliver Perpener III | Political and Social Activism in African American Concert Dance: Eleo Pomare and the Black Arts Movement | 3/1/2012 - 2/28/2013 | $50,400.00 | John | Oliver | Perpener | | | | Unaffiliated Independent Scholar | Washington | DC | 20012-1460 | USA | 2011 | Dance History and Criticism | Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 50400 | 0 |
I am proposing an extensive period of writing and any further research that needs to be done to complete the work on my book on dancer/choreographer Eleo Pomare and several artists who were associated with him. He made important contributions to the development of a black aesthetic in American concert dance. The book will emphasize the 1960s and 1970s, decades when the Black Arts Movement influenced African-American artists to become involved in political and social struggles by creating work specifically for black audiences and promoting messages of self-empowerment. Pomare worked with playwright Leroi Jones [Amiri Baraka] in 1965 and then went on to create his own scathing indictments of racial oppression. My study will expand the literature of dance history and American cultural history by including the stories of African-American dance artists who pursued the entwined missions of artistic production and social, political, and cultural activism, during a volatile time in America. |