Photo: Gene Howell

Reflections on Dancing the Afrofuture

Greetings Halifu,

After the Book Tour I Explore What It's About

I've gotten healthy feedback about Dancing the Afrofuture, and I am grateful. Here's what a few critics have said:

Continuing her life story, Osumare takes us to Hawai'i and to Ghana, where she maps the global circulation of hip-hop, and into the halls of academe, where her spirit of bodymind never stop dancing. ---------Susan Manning, coeditor of Futures of Dance Studies.

Osumare's follow-up to her first memoir, Dancing in Blackness, finds her entering a new phase of her life while still drawn to the immense power and spirituality of dance and Black culture. ----------Jessica Durham, Library Journal

I respect Osumare's display of gratitude toward her "ancestors," especially the great dance anthropologist Katherine Dunham, and her enthusiastic support of her students, some of whom become her "adopted daughters." Her primary thesis, Osumare reiterates, is "the Arc of Mutual Inspiration. The past, dialoguing with the present, points to an Afrofuture that is still unfolding."

-----Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice

Dancing the Afrofuture on YouTube

Mya D. calls herself the Dance Ed Booktuber Specialist. On Youtube she scans books in 26 minutes, then gives her take-aways on Youtube. She created a 12-minute Youtube clip on Dancing the Afrofuture. She appreciates my use of Brenda Dixon Gottschild’s Black Dancing Body when I quote her stating, “. . . through soul power the body manifests spirit. Soul

represent the attribute of the body/mind that mediates between flesh and spirit.” Check out her full 12-minute assessment of Dancing the Afrofuture HERE.

Dance Afrikana Houston YouTube - Season 1 Episode 9: Dancing the Afrofuture with Dr. Halifu Osumare

In my 53-minute Interview with Dr. Lindsay Gary of Houston Texas we discussed the Katherine Dunham Legacy, Hip-Hop and it’s appropriation by the world, the Afrofuture and my concept of the Sankofa Process, and much more. Experience it in small increments. It’s definitely worth watching HERE.

What A Reader Has To Say

Denise Goodrich Neil, a retired Hospice Chaplain in Cleveland, OH, is reading Dancing the Afrofuture, and has this to say about what she has gotten from my book:

Reading Dancing the Afrofuture is giving me the language to help articulate the legacy of Wali’s art through the lens of AfroFuturism. Utilizing the Sankofa Process, he leaned heavily on Africa’s past to create a colorful, joyful future vision. I also had the “ahah moment” when I realized the eggs [a symbol in the Sankofa Bird image] that were in many of his paintings were representative of that future yet-to-be!

Thank you, Halifu, for your scholarship and personal sharing. It is wonderful to know you at a deeper level through this book.

Denise's artist husband, Walt "Wali" Neil , now an Ancestor, was an artist in the Afrofuturist tradition and is included in the current Ohio State University's exhibit, FREEQUENCY , which "features art from Black artists whose work is positioned in an Afrofuturistic frame. It imagines what the future of the Black experience is while acknowledging that it must include and honor the past and present as well because our time is not linear. FREEQUENCY is the vibration of the ancestors, Black people who exist now, and the generations to come." The exhibit in Columbus, OH runs through June 29, 2024 at Urban Arts Space.

Dance is Life & Life is a Dance

Dancing in Blackness:

A professional female dancer’s personal journey over four decades, across three continents and 23 countries, and through defining moments in the story of black dance in America.

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The Hiplife in Ghana: How one West African country has received hip-hop and turned it into a new genre by remixing it with their century-old pop music of highlife.

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The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip Hop: Explores the two reasons for hip-hop’s globalization: 1) American dominant pop culture internationally, and 2) hip-hop’s beat and empowerment of youth.

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