Creating Contemporary American Identities Through Movement: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

Contemporary choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar continues the theme of dancemakers who use their art to express their American identities and as a means of communicating about social and political issues. Zollar choreographed her dances titled Walking with Pearl to honor the artistic legacy of Pearl Primus and to show how that …

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Pearl Primus’s Strange Fruit and Hard Time Blues

Pearl Primus was a member of the New Dance Group where she was encouraged by its socially and politically active members to develop her early solo dances dealing with the plight of African Americans in the face of racism. Strange Fruit (1945), a piece in which a woman reflects on …

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