Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper examines contemporary pedagogical praxis within jazz dance to identify strategies which centralize and prioritize the Africanist presence. The European influence within jazz dance has been the privileged perspective and historically the lens through which the form is predominantly viewed, documented, critiqued, and taught. Educators with privilege are obligated to develop anti-racist pedagogy to lessen the burden on oppressed people. By recognizing the politics of race and power in dance, educators can begin to identify unconscious bias and ingrained modes of dissemination. This research invites educators to do and undo: to make visible the elements of Africanist ways of doing and to challenge exclusively European approaches. Specifically, educators can address cultural cross-pollination in jazz dance styles in America, identify the Africanist aesthetic, and begin to write history through embodied practice, giving students a more accurate picture of jazz dance. We posit that an experiential learning model with assessment tools prioritizing process over product, gathering information on student subjective experience, as well as explicit citation by the instructor of social-vernacular dance forms begin to decolonize twenty-first century jazz dance pedagogy.