This course examines the theatre of the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s to mid 1970s, with a special focus on the choreopoem, established by playwright and performance artist Ntozake Shange. The Black Arts Movement (BAM) emerges in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, among other locations, as a cultural component of the Black Power Movement in the mid 1960’s, and its legacy continues to this day. Shange’s goal was to develop an alternative theatre based in Africanist and Black aesthetics combining poetry and dance in a non-linear fashion allowing stories to emerge through alternative and abstract structures that are activist in nature. We will ground the choreopoem in global theatre traditions that inspired Shange and in which the seeds of this 20thcentury form can be found. In addition to Shange’s work the course will explore the work of artists such as the performance poet Jayne Cortez, the choreographer Diane McIntyre, playwright and poet Imamu Amiri Baraka, as well as present-day performance artists that have taken up and evolved the form.

The course is designed to incorporate theory and practice through play and poetry readings, movement investigations, student presentations of Theatre/Performance Artists, and viewing performances either virtually or in person (TBD).  As a culminating project, students will develop either a choreopoem of their own or curate an imagined Black Arts Movement theatre festival or season.