Shange, Ntozake: Dance We Do: A Poet Explores Black Dance

Dance We Do: A Poet Explores Black Dance by Ntozake Shange with a Foreword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Afterword by Reneé L. Charlow (Beacon Press, hardcover) Publication Date: October 13, 2020 Publisher Marketing: In her first posthumous work, the revered poet crafts a personal history of Black dance and captures the careers of legendary dancers along with her own rhythmic beginnings. Many learned of Ntozake Shange's ability to blend movement with words when her acclaimed choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf made its way to Broadway in 1976, eventually winning an Obie Award the following year. But before she found fame as a writer, poet, performer, dancer, and storyteller, she was an untrained student who found her footing in others' classrooms. Dance We Do is a tribute to those who taught her and her passion for rhythm, movement, and dance. After 20 years of research, writing, and devotion, Ntozake Shange tells her history of Black dance t