Abstract
In order to introduce the narratives in the chapters that follow, Akinleye’s introductory chapter positions a range of approaches to the terms ‘Black’, ‘British’, and ‘Dance’. Akinleye examines how artists who identify with the notions of 'Blackness’ and ‘Britishness’ contribute to a dance scene where the complexities of their work are often invisibilised. The chapter discusses contexts for talking about the dancing body, to expose them as having concealed Black, British, dance stories in the past. Akinleye draws attention to the context of the historical legacy of abuse to the ‘Black body’ and the effects that this has on how Black dance and black dancers are audienced today. She offers a (re)articulation of the physical and cultural mapping of the richness of British dance.
…to live at the tense borders of the skin, to live in an uneasy truce of evolution and the molting of cultural identity into something unforeseen and new.
(Wilson in Hereniko & Wilson, 1999, p. 3)
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Akinleye, A. (2018). Narratives in Black British Dance: An Introduction. In: Akinleye, A. (eds) Narratives in Black British Dance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70314-5_1
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