ABOUT THE VISIT
Please join TAPS, DAAAS, IDA, and CBPA on April 04 for a Lecture* and Masterclass by Dr. Halifu Osumare.
The Lecture*, in Green Library’s Hohbach Hall, will feature American Book Award winner Halifu Osumare focusing on her research as it relates to Dunham & Dance Afrofuturism: Afro-Caribbean Dance as Embodied Knowledge. The discussion will be moderated by Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin (PhD candidate History Department).
Nearby in Presentation Room 122, guests can view an Archival “Pop-Up” featuring Dunham material from Stanford’s Special Collections beginning at 11AM.
The Masterclass, taught by Dr. Halifu Osumare, will focus on the Dunham Technique in Roble Gym at 2PM.
*Please Note: Members of the public without @stanford.edu emails must RSVP by April 3rd for this event in order to be granted access to Hohbach Hall.
Questions? Email Raissa Simpson: raiisas [at] stanford.edu
ABOUT DR. HALIFU OSUMARE
Dr. Halifu Osumare is Professor Emerita of African American & African Studies at University of California, Davis, and is recognized as a scholar, dancer, choreographer, and cultural activist for over fifty years. She earned a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Hawai’i and was a Lecturer at Stanford University from 1981-1993 in the Dance Division and the Committee on Black Performing Arts. As community activist, she was the founder of CitiCentre Dance Theater in Oakland and created the national dance initiative Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century.
Dr. Osumare published her autobiography Dancing in Blackness, A Memoir (2018), winning the 2019 Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics and the American Book Award. In February 2024 she published her sequel memoir, Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy. She continues, as her mentor Katherine Dunham, to dedicate her life to the arts and humanities for a better world.
ARCHIVAL POP-UP
FRI APR 04 BEGINNING at 11AM
GREEN LIBRARY PRESENTATION ROOM 122
This archival pop-up features a display of Dunham material from Stanford’s Special Collections.
LECTURE
FRI APR 04 at NOON-1PM
GREEN LIBRARY’S HOHBACH HALL EVENT SPACE (1ST FLOOR)
“Dunham & Dance Afrofuturism: Afro-Caribbean Dance as Embodied Knowledge”
In the dance world, dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) set out to create a dialogue within the Caribbean, as well as between the Caribbean and the U.S. through performance. Her timing was impeccable by showcasing concert dance in the late 1930s, after a Negro renaissance in Harlem had already been inaugurated in the 1920s in literature and painting. During that historic period, Dunham also included the representation of vernacular Black dance, which invoked what Caribbeanist scholar VéVé Clark called lieux de mémoire or sites of memory (i.e., Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom).
In “Dunham & Dance Afrofuturism: Afro-Caribbean Dance as Embodied Knowledge,” Dr. Osumare explores Dunham’s oeuvres in relation to the Caribbean, while exploring how her embodied knowledge of the entire Black Atlantic was a forerunner to contemporary Afrofuturism, an African-centered approach to exploring impending technology. Through a PowerPoint presentation, which includes embedded Dunham interviews and Black choreographers contemporary dance works, The theme investigates diaspora literacy through the vision of Dance as embodied knowledge.
*Please Note: Members of the public without @stanford.edu emails must RSVP by April 3rd for this event in order to be granted access to Hohbach Hall.
MASTERCLASS
FRI APR 04 at 2-4PM
ROBLE GYM 113
Dr. Halifu Osumare will lead a two hour Masterclass on the Dunham Technique. Masterclass attendees, please wear comfortable clothing to move in and water.
ADMISSION
ARCHIVAL POP-UP + LECTURE
Free and Open to the Public
[members of the public must RSVP by April 3rd]