Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:41:17.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bodies on the Line: Contact Improvisation and Techniques of Nonviolent Protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Danielle Goldman
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

On the morning of May 4, 1961, a brave and motley group of travelers—seven black males, three white males, and three white females, varying in age and professional standing but all trained in nonviolence—embarked on what they called the “Freedom Ride.” Designed by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the bus ride was meant to commemorate and further the organization's 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, a non-violent test of desegregation on interstate buses that quickly disintegrated in the face of staunch resistance. This time, riders would test the 1960 Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, which prohibited segregation in the waiting rooms and restaurants of bus terminals (Branch 1989, 390). Departing from Washington, D.C., the Freedom Ride aimed to arrive in New Orleans on May 17, the seventh anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Explaining that they were merely exercising rights granted by the Supreme Court but that they knew the dangers, CORE director James Farmer said, “We were prepared for the possibility of death” (Cozzens 1997). Riding the momentum of the student sit-ins, the civil rights movement had become for many a matter of “putting your body on the line” (Branch 1989, 392).

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , Summer 2007 , pp. 60 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2007

References

Works Cited

Albright, Ann Cooper. 2001. “Open Bodies: (X)Changes of Identity in Capoeira and Contact Improvisation.” In CORD 2001: Transmigratory Moves: Dance in Global Circulation. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Banes, Sally. 1983. Democracy's Body: Judson Dance Theater, 1962–1964. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.Google Scholar
Branch, Taylor. 1989. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Browning, Barbara. 2004. “Choreographing Postcoloniality: Reflections on the Passing of Edward Said.” Dance Research Journal 35 (2) and 36 (2): 164–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cozzens, Lisa. 1997. Freedom Rides. Accessed May 2, 2006, from http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/freeride.html.Google Scholar
Daly, Ann. 1998. “Bill T. Jones in Conversation with Ann Daly.” In Art Performs Life: Merce Cunningham/Meredith Monk/Bill T. Jones. Minneapolis: Walker Arts Center.Google Scholar
De Spain, Kent. 1995. “A Moving Decision: Notes on the Improvising Mind.” Contact Quarterly 20 (1): 48–50.Google Scholar
Divining Revelations: An Evening with Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. 1986. DVD. RM Arts/Danmakrs Radio Musikafdelingen.Google Scholar
Ellison, Ralph. 1947. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International.Google Scholar
Foster, Susan Leigh. 2003. “Choreographies of Protest.” Theatre Journal 55 (3): 395–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 1996. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Bill T., and Gillespie, Peggy. 1995. Last Night on Earth. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
King, Jason. 2004. “Which Way Is Down? Improvisations On Black Mobility.” Women And Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 14:1 (27): 24–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirstein, Lincoln. 1983. “Classic Ballet: Aria of the Aerial.” In What Is Dance: Readings in Theory and Criticism, 238–43. Edited by Copeland, Roger and Cohen, Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 2004. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Meier, August, and Rudwick, Elliott. 1973. Core: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942–1968. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Novack, Cynthia. 1990. Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Martin, and Lakey, George. 1964. A Manual For Direct Action. Foreword by Rustin, Bayard. Chicago: Quadrangle.Google Scholar
Overlie, Mary. 1984. “The Studies Project.” Contact Quarterly 9 (3): 30–37.Google Scholar
Paxton, Steve. 1997a. “Fall After Newton.” Contact Quarterly's Contact Improvisation Sourcebook: Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly Dance Journal 1975–1992, 142–43. Ed. Nelson, Lisa and Smith, Nancy Stark. Northampton: Contact Editions.Google Scholar
Paxton, Steve. 1997b. “The Small Dance: Elizabeth Zimmer interviewing Steve Paxton.” Contact Quarterly's Contact Improvisation Sourcebook: Collected Writings and Graphics from Contact Quarterly Dance Journal 1975–1992, 23. Edited by Nelson, Lisa and Smith, Nancy Stark. Northampton: Contact Editions.Google Scholar
Smith, Nancy Stark. 1984. “Dealing with the Heat.” Contact Quarterly 9 (3): 3.Google Scholar
Stodelle, Ernestine. 1978. The Dance Technique of Doris Humphrey and Its Creative Potential. 2nd ed.Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book.Google Scholar
Volinsky, A. K. 1983. “The Vertical: The Fundamental Principle of Classic Dance.” What Is Dance: Readings in Theory and Criticism, 255–56. Edited by Copeland, Roger and Cohen, Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar