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lsparrow's review against another edition
3.0
a memoir looking at black dance.
perhaps if I was more in the dance world it would have held me more.
perhaps if I was more in the dance world it would have held me more.
disabledbookdragon's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
twists_nd_turns's review against another edition
5.0
Shange captured such a necessary piece of history in Dance We Do! As a dancer I time traveled back to my own experiences and as if I was alongside Shange in the way she recalls her experiences with such color, truth, and power. May she rest knowing her commitment to completing this work is in fact changing lives.
agingerandherbooks's review
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
A mix of memoir and interviews, Dance We Do by Ntozake Shange is a book about Black dance from the woman who invented the choreopoem. Shange and Renee L. Charlow worked on this book for several years while Shange was sick, but still, they didn't have time to complete all her interviews and reflections before she passed. There were heartbreaking moments because of Shange's body's limits, but mostly, this book was filled with joy.
This is a love letter to Black dance, to movement, to the body that allows for that movement. This is not a book for people who believe Eurocentric (I think of ballet specifically) technique is the end all be all for dance. This is for those who improvise, who get lost in the sounds and spirits around them. Dancing is joy, happiness, love... storytelling. Shange and her many influential dancers around her (teachers, mentors, fellow improvisers...) use(d) dance to add to their poems, music, plays... always seeking to enhance and deepen the art, never take away from it.
I didn't know any of the names they interviewed, and although I finished the book last night, I am still lost in the book researching all the names hoping to find some of their work on the internet. Because I love dance & poetry, I have always had a soft spot for anything Ntozake Shange. When I picked up this book I expected it to be more so in the form of poetry, but I love that it wasn't. Her personal reflections of some of the dancers added a depth to the interviews that reflected her poetic voice, but still drove home her absolute love of dance.
" ...[W]e cannot forget that it was Shange, with her brave poetics, her slashes and insistence that poetry must move, who retaught us how to speak, to read, to walk, on purpose." - from the foreword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
"To realize one has a body and to feel that body in motion, flying, stomping, sweating, sliding, turning, cascading in somersaults, or crossing the floor in a grand chasse or a grand battement, is to know freedom."
This is a love letter to Black dance, to movement, to the body that allows for that movement. This is not a book for people who believe Eurocentric (I think of ballet specifically) technique is the end all be all for dance. This is for those who improvise, who get lost in the sounds and spirits around them. Dancing is joy, happiness, love... storytelling. Shange and her many influential dancers around her (teachers, mentors, fellow improvisers...) use(d) dance to add to their poems, music, plays... always seeking to enhance and deepen the art, never take away from it.
I didn't know any of the names they interviewed, and although I finished the book last night, I am still lost in the book researching all the names hoping to find some of their work on the internet. Because I love dance & poetry, I have always had a soft spot for anything Ntozake Shange. When I picked up this book I expected it to be more so in the form of poetry, but I love that it wasn't. Her personal reflections of some of the dancers added a depth to the interviews that reflected her poetic voice, but still drove home her absolute love of dance.
" ...[W]e cannot forget that it was Shange, with her brave poetics, her slashes and insistence that poetry must move, who retaught us how to speak, to read, to walk, on purpose." - from the foreword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
"To realize one has a body and to feel that body in motion, flying, stomping, sweating, sliding, turning, cascading in somersaults, or crossing the floor in a grand chasse or a grand battement, is to know freedom."
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