Black Women in Dance: Stepping Out of the Barriers:The Dance of Leadership

“The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.” These words of Josephine Baker resonate my passion for the leadership of dance.

This paper is personal perspective, based on a thirty year journey, captured through different roles in dance, cultural and creative industries and wider society. It charts three decades of career reinvention, rebranded and repositioned several times to create new futures and legacies.

This journey would not have been possible without friendships, relationships and the leadership of others. The paper gives prominence to Black women in dance whose leadership have been inspirational and aspirational.

Within the UK, there has been a proliferation of black women who have contributed to the development of the dance ecosystem/ecology that exist today, but they have not been recognised or become part of the history and culture of dance. Doris Harper-Wills, storyteller, writer and choreographer is one of those women. This paper is dedicated to her.

Book Information

From early trailblazers to contemporary ground breakers, Black Women in Dance: Stepping Out of the Barriers, is an exciting publication celebrating and exploring the impact that Black women have made on the international dance ecology. This publication explores topics from the need for institutions and infrastructure to support work from African and African-Caribbean artists, and the key role of women within these organisations, to artists' journeys taken to develop new aesthetics and an individual choreographic voice. The contributors also reflect upon the obstacles they have had to overcome as they have progressed in their careers and some of the challenges they still have to face. Moreover, Black Women in Dance is a celebration of the tenacity, strength and creativity of the authors, their peers and their predecessors. Featuring Adesola Akinleye, Deborah Baddoo, Hilary S. Carty, Catherine Dénécy, Pam Johnson, Mercy Nabirye, Maureen Salmon, Jessica Walker, Sharon Watson and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar with a preface by Pawlet Brookes.

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