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Ring shout, wheel about : the racial politics of music and dance in North American slavery / Katrina Dyonne Thompson.

By: Thompson, Katrina DyonneMaterial type: TextTextSeries: JSTOR eBooksPublisher: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2014Description: 1 online resource (x, 242 pages) : illustrationsContent type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780252096112; 0252096118; 1306980917; 9781306980913Subject(s): Slaves -- Southern States -- Songs and music | Slaves -- United States -- Social life and customs | Race in the theater -- United States -- History | Theater and society -- United States -- History | African American dance -- History | Slavery -- United States -- Justification | Plantation life -- United States | Racism in popular culture -- United States -- HistoryAdditional physical formats: Print version:: Ring shout, wheel aboutDDC classification: 390/.250973 LOC classification: E443 | .T49 2014Other classification: SOC001000 | PER003000 | HIS036040 Online resources: Click here to view this ebook.
Contents:
The script : "Africa was but a blank canvas for Europe's imagination" -- Casting : "They sang their home-songs, and danced, each with his free foot slapping the deck" -- Onstage : "Dance you damned niggers, dance" -- Backstage : "White folks do as they please, and the darkies do as they can" -- Advertisement : "Dancing through the Streets and act lively" -- Same script, different actors : "Eb'ry time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow" -- Epilogue : the show must go on -- -
Summary: "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"-- Provided by publisher.
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Item type Current location Call number URL Status Date due Barcode
Electronic Book UT Tyler Online
Online 		E443 .T49 2014 (Browse shelf) https://ezproxy.uttyler.edu/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt7zw5wh Available ocn884725834

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The script : "Africa was but a blank canvas for Europe's imagination" -- Casting : "They sang their home-songs, and danced, each with his free foot slapping the deck" -- Onstage : "Dance you damned niggers, dance" -- Backstage : "White folks do as they please, and the darkies do as they can" -- Advertisement : "Dancing through the Streets and act lively" -- Same script, different actors : "Eb'ry time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow" -- Epilogue : the show must go on -- -

Text in English.

Description based on print version record.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

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

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