By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer
It’s all connected.
Renowned dance scholar and UC Davis Professor Emerita, Dr. Halifu Osumare is sharing her new memoir, “Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy,” which chronicles her evolution from a dancer-activist in the Bay Area to an academic researching the global effects of hip-hop culture.
The new book is a continuation of Dr. Osumare’s award-winning 2018 book, “Dancing In Blackness.” In it, she refers to legendary choreographer and dance anthropologist Katherine Dunham as her “spiritual mother and mentor.”
“‘Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy’ continues the review of my life and career in relation to the shifting political, cultural, and aesthetic contexts of my artistic, academic and personal choices,” the author writes.
“In this sequel memoir I focus more on how I use Katherine Dunham’s dance and philosophy to navigate this multilayered terrain.”
Dr. Osumare’s career and self-exploration have taken her around the globe, including stops in Hawaii and Ghana. In “Dancing the Afrofuture,” Dr. Osumare talks about the past and embraces the future. She shares her theory of “connective marginality” and “the link between disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalized youth who are attracted to the power of hip-hop culture, and the historical, political landscape from which both arise.” She previously touched on the subject in “Beat Streets in the Global Hood: Connective Marginalities of the Hip Hop Globe.”
Dr. Osumare speaks to her own decades-long commitment to dance and cultural activism.
“Back in 1972, we artists were interrogating in creative conversation what it meant to be human from a Black perspective, on the heels of the legal successes of the Civil Rights Movement, the challenge and awakening of the Black Power Movement, and the continuing pursuit of ‘the need to develop a Black aesthetic,” she writes.
Dr. Osumare previously taught African American and African Studies at UC Davis and is the founder of CitiCentre Dance Theater in Oakland.
In February, Dr. Osumare was a guest speaker at a post-performance talk at The Guild Theater, during Celebration Arts’ run of “For Colored Girls” there. The classic choreopoem, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf” was created by the late Ntozake Shange, a former student of Dr. Osumare’s. Dr. Osumare is also a Celebration Arts board member.
While on the East Coast leg of her book tour, the author answered a few questions from The OBSERVER.
Q: What keeps you at the exploration of Black dance and its impact globally?
A: I have been a dancer all my life because that is my calling and I see dance as a form of survival for Black people. From my various iterations of “The Evolution of Black Dance,” which told the story of our journey from Africa to the Americas through dance, I have tried to illuminate the African American historical journey through dance.
Now that I am a writer/scholar, I continue that dance journey through research and writing about my personal career. The title of my Introduction, “From Dancing on the Stage to Dancing on the Page,” says it all.
Q. Speaking of the future, are you confident/optimistic that the next generation will build on your legacy and that of icons like Katherine Dunham, as you have?
A. Yes, I am confident of that continuing dance legacy. I am confident because if dance is a part of our survival, we as a people will continue to express our personal and collective identity through that medium. Every generation creates its own dances and self-expression, but those “new” expressions are a continuation of the Africanist aesthetic that is a part of our “blood memory.”
In terms of Katherine Dunham’s specific legacy, I have helped to build a non-profit organization that was established to systematically certify new generations of Dunham teachers. It is called The Institute for Dunham Technique Certification (IDTC). It will ensure her legacy continues and will be properly passed down.
Q. What do you want readers to walk away from this book with?
A. I want readers of “Dancing The Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy” to know that there is hope for the future of Black people through our own creativity and modes of survival. We have always seen the horrors of our past and the precarity of our present as temporary and kept hope alive. We have also held close to creating our own “realities,” such as the “Flying Africans” tales, Sun Ra and his “Space is the Place,” Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction novels that put empowered Black people at the helm of their futuristic narratives, and current singers/dancers like Janelle Monae who project their own self-defined reality.
My personal story in this memoir is the tale of a self-defined, self-empowered Black woman, like Katherine Dunham, who followed my own muse, and created my own realities that have empowered communities in Oakland and now Sacramento. I hope readers will find a model in my story that will lead them to their own empowerment.
Q. In 2018, you won an American Book Award for “Dancing In Blackness,” are you hoping for a repeat?
A. I take each project and endeavor on its own terms. Right now I am focused on letting people know about my sequel memoir on a national book tour. It is being received well in North Carolina, Florida, NYC, and now I’m on to Washington, DC. I look forward to doing my readings in my home areas — Sacramento and the Bay Area. What is meant for this book will come on its own. I’m just doing the work.
Dr. Osumare will discuss “Dancing the Afrofuture” during two local events. On Friday, March 8, she’s set to appear at Underground Books from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Underground Books is located at 2814 35th Street. On Wednesday, she’s set to speak at UC Davis’ Hart Hall, located at 3201 One Shields Avenue, Davis, from 4:00- 6:00 p.m.