Dance Qualities Of African-American Dance

One example of an area or an activity that demonstrates African-American dance qualities is basketball. The movement for basketball shows qualities of street dancing. This can be seen when players shoot the ball and when players attempt to fake out the opposing side by spinning around in opposing directions. Double Dutch is another example of the demonstrates African-American dance qualities. While males would participate in sports, females would participate in Double Dutch. Double Dutch is shared among the young people and the elderly. The movements in Double Dutch went from just jumping rope to rhythmic movements, a quality shared with African-American dance.

One more example of an activity that shares qualities of African-American dance

is cheerleading. Cheerleaders blended different styles of dances in their routines, like street dancing and hip-hop dancing. Their attire is comfortable so they can fluently move around for multi-unit movements. Street performers on The Fremont Street Experience is another example. While I was working for Starbucks, my walk to work would involve walking across the Las Vegas Strip to my location that I worked that. I would typically identify different street performers who do hip-hop dancing, break dancing, and even ballet! There was obvious proof that they have thoroughly studied choreographies inspired by African-American dance whenever I spectate these performers.

Overall, this course taught us about the history of African-American dance. For African-Americans, dance was their heart and soul. Dance helped raise their spirits while being slaves, helped them express their struggles and culture, and this feeling stuck with them even to today. Through the course of history, dance changed the way people examine African-Americans in a positive way. I have one friend, Kevin T., who knows choreographies to Korean music videos. After watching the type of dances he would perform while watching these music videos, I discovered that the pop stars he was imitating adapted multi-unit movements that can be said to be inspired by African dance. This is one of a myriad of example of how I apply what I learned from this course to real life situations.