Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham

Dances in Literature and Cinema

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by Hannah Durkin

Type

Stories

Subject

Actress > Josephine Baker

Keywords

Josephine Baker, dance, Katherine Dunham, African Americans

Publishing date

2019

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 272 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-252-08445-4

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Book Presentation:
Two great artists creating new visions of black womanhood

Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham were the two most acclaimed and commercially successful African American dancers of their era and among the first black women to enjoy international screen careers. Both also produced fascinating memoirs that provided vital insights into their artistic philosophies and choices. However, difficulties in accessing and categorizing their works on the screen and on the page have obscured their contributions to film and literature.
Hannah Durkin investigates Baker's and Dunham’s films and writings to shed new light on their legacies as transatlantic artists and civil rights figures. Their trailblazing dancing and choreography reflected a belief that they could use film to confront racist assumptions while also imagining—within significant confines—new aesthetic possibilities for black women. Their writings, meanwhile, revealed their creative process, engagement with criticism, and the ways each mediated cultural constructions of black women's identities. Durkin pays particular attention to the ways dancing bodies function as ever-changing signifiers and de-stabilizing transmitters of cultural identity. In addition, she offers an overdue appraisal of Baker's and Dunham's places in cinematic and literary history.

About the Author:
Hannah Durkin is a lecturer in literature and film at Newcastle University. She is a coeditor of Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora.

Press Reviews:
"The first in-depth analysis of African American dancers Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham’s contributions to cinema." --Film History

"Hannah Durkin has done a masterful job of excavating the performance histories, memoirs, and cinematic records of Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham in a transnational context." --Journal of African American History

See the publisher website: University of Illinois Press

See the complete filmography of Josephine Baker on the website: IMDB ...