During the 1920’s and 30’s, dance was described as a “flowering of artistic creativity” that inspired various innovations and periodic revivals. After the Civil War, many people from the Deep South and the Caribbean migrated into various North American cities. New York, specifically in Harlem, became home to black people from different cultural backgrounds and traditions with their own unique dances and music styles. Dancers in Harlem used different parts of the body, undulated (“to move with a smooth, wavelike motion) the spine, rotated the hips, bent their knees, fluidly extending and flexing their legs and moved on their flat feet with their torsos oriented towards the ground. New dances were created out of the cultural mixing of African Americans from different parts of the North and South, also. Because of this Harlem later became the “fountainhead” of social dances that became a craze during the twenties. As a result of this, racial agency, appropriation of cultural dances, as well as the commodification of black stereotypes became a growing social and political issue.
Check out some of the dance during the Harlem Renaissance!
Dance in The Harlem Renaissance 