Awards

• Winner of <DIV>A <I>Choice</I> Outstanding Academic Title, 2014.</DIV> 2014

Overview

In this ambitious project, historian Katrina Thompson examines the conceptualization and staging of race through the performance, sometimes coerced, of black dance from the slave ship to the minstrel stage. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Thompson explicates how black musical performance was used by white Europeans and Americans to justify enslavement, perpetuate the existing racial hierarchy, and mask the brutality of the domestic slave trade. Whether on slave ships, at the auction block, or on plantations, whites often used coerced performances to oppress and demean the enslaved. As Thompson shows, however, blacks' ""backstage"" use of musical performance often served quite a different purpose. Through creolization and other means, enslaved people preserved some native musical and dance traditions and invented or adopted new traditions that built community and even aided rebellion. Thompson shows how these traditions evolved into nineteenth-century minstrelsy and, ultimately, raises the question of whether today's mass media performances and depictions of African Americans are so very far removed from their troublesome roots.

Full Product Details

9780252079832

Table of Contents

Reviews

Important reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of the performing arts and race in America. What is seemingly a simple topic--enslaved people's performance of music and dance--achieves great complexity and delivers tremendous returns in Katrina Thompson's able hands. --Diane Mutti-Burke, author of On Slavery's Border: Missouri's Small Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865

Author Information

Katrina Dyonne Thompson is an assistant professor of history and African American studies at St. Louis University.

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