sexhaver:

blacktemple:

theniggaskaramazov:

Crank That Soulja Boy (by Soulja Boy)

0:53 

these are the moments I’m truly proud to be black 

this is art

(via bmoburns)

(Source: blackballerinas, via bijunn)

gelopanda:

Babalu aye has the most eerie, intricate, intense and dedicated dances. Maferefun Babalu Aye.

Los bailes de Babalu Aye son los más intenso, y dedicado. Maferefun Babalu Aye, Maferefun Orisha

(via lati-negros)

(Source: superherushichi, via buttondownmoda)

(Source: televandalist, via notesonascandal)

so-treu:

(via katataksrainbow)

so-treu:

Jazzart Dance Theatre.

On Fire with African Dance: The Story of Mambo with Robert Farris Thompson →

nypl:

Robert Farris Thompson, Master T, the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University will focus his lecture on mambo that shows a fusion of a variety of dance styles from Lindy, to ballet, to bomba, to Afro-Cuban dance.

i <3 Robert Farris Thompson.

(via note-a-bear)

whoslovinyou:

“Michael is quite amazing to me because he’s working with these people that have made a living of this, I mean have studied this for a greater portion of their lives. And he’ll walk into the studio and purely on rhythm, I mean I will only give him a rhythm of a step.. And he does it! You know, and it really just.. it’s fascinating! Because here are these people, you know, who have spent x amount of thousands of dollars training, studying to be dancers for all their lives. And here are this kid who walks into the room, and you say ‘this is the beat - dat dara dara!’ And he does it! And it’s really wonderful to watch because it’s a unique gift that he has. He’s a dancer in his soul” - Michael Peters (choreographer for ‘thriller’)

(via so-treu)

afrodiaspores:

Bamboula, Fort de France, Martinique, 1902. Yolande Behazin-Joseph-Noël writes,

The bamboula, a very lively dance that is danced in couples, is also of Bantu origin. As Father Labat pointed out, the word bamboula doubtless derives from the African bamboo drum which originally accompanied the dance…

Some of these bamboulas were semiprivate rituals conducted by associations called sociétés in Guadeloupe and convois in Martinique. These closed societies combined ethnic, religious, and economic functions. In their role as mutual aid cooperatives, they generated common funds for funerals, purchasing freedom of members, or for sponsoring community performance rituals (such as processions and dances on festival days). These organizations appear to have grown out of groups of African nations in the Lesser Antilles. In Martinique closed societies had a hierarchical organization led by a queen or king and court…

While there is little written documentation to illuminate the participants’ understanding of the bamboulas of closed societies, it is likely that many of the dances had specific religious implications, particularly when connected to particular nations. In Martinique the covert rituals of some closed societies may have been the context most associated with the pugilistic arts, which…was ‘the most secret dance’; only those initiated into the closed societies knew the martial art form and noninitiates knew it only by its distinctive rhythms. Some of these societies, like the Old Time Religion societies of North America, provided resources for counterhegemonic activity, such as the society that a bondswoman led in Guadeloupe in 1845 and that was dedicated to helping bondsmen escape slavery.