In understanding physicality as the basis of Shange\u2019s art, I realize that she equates dance with both truth and survival. In \u201cwhy i had to dance\/\/\u201d Shange calls attention to a critical moment in her development: \u201cwhen I decided that dance was as important to me as writing\/ that in order to write, I had to sweat\/ to reach some sort of endorphin high to get to the truth\/ which was the word\/ this would change over time\u201d (56). She recalls this relationship between sweat and truth in \u201cmovement\/ melody\/ muscle\/ meaning\/ mcintyre\u201d as she elaborates on McIntyre\u2019s work, committing dancers to \u201cthe rubrics of sound and sweat\u201d and, by doing so, upholding a dance company \u201cthat does not lie\u201d (62). These moments led me to ask, how does sweat lead to the truth?<\/p>\n
Then, throughout the readings, Shange relates dance to the formation and maintenance of her afro-identity and consciousness, particularly in \u201ca celebration of black survival\/ black dance america\/ brooklyn academy of music.\u201d Here, she not only articulates how choreographers are addressing \u201cthe many ways we\u2019ve avoided death, insisted on living,\u201d (74) but also insists, \u201cWe must sing and dance or we shall die an inert, motionless, \u2018sin ritmo\u2019 death.\u201d I have two additional questions: in what ways does Shange characterize truth and survival as \u201cone\u201d? What does Shange\u2019s statement, \u201cthis would change over time\u201d (56) add to our interpretation of truth and survival according to Shange?<\/p>\n
Shange discusses her experience with dance, endorphins, and writing in the following video:<\/p>\n
A Conversation with Ntozake Shange and Dianne McIntyre<\/a> from BCRW Videos<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In understanding physicality as the basis of Shange\u2019s art, I realize that she equates dance with both truth and survival. In \u201cwhy i had to dance\/\/\u201d Shange calls attention to a critical moment in her development: \u201cwhen I decided that dance was as important to me as writing\/ that in order to write, I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14,59,13],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","tag-dance","tag-diane-mcintyre","tag-movement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}