Foreword / D. Soyini Madison

Acknowledgments

Introduction. From "Negro Experiment" to "Black Performance" / Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez

Part I: Transporting Black

1. Navigations: Diasporic Transports and Landings / Anita Gonzalez

2. Diasporic Spidering: Constructing Contemporary Black Identities / Nadine George-Graves

3. Twenty-First-Century Post-Humans: The Rose of the See-J / Hershini Bhana Young

4. Hip Work: Undoing the Tragic Mulata / Melissa Blanco Borelli

Part II: Black-En-Scène

5. Black-Authored Lynching Drama's Challenge to Theater History / Koritha Mitchell

6. Reading "Spirit" and the Dancing Body in the Choreography of Ronald K. Brown and Reggie Wilson / Carl Paris

7. Uncovered: A Pageant of Hip Hop Masters / Rickerby Hinds

Part III: Black Imaginary

8. Black Movements: Flying Africans in Spaceships / Soyica Diggs Colbert

9. Post-logical Notes on Self-Election / Wendy S. Walters

10: Cityscaped: Ethnospheres / Anna B. Scott

Part IV: Hi-Fidelity Black

11. "Rip It Up": Excess and Ecstasy in Little Richard's Sound / Tavia Nyong'o

12. Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough: Presence, Spectacle, and Good Feeling in Michael Jackson's This Is It / Jason King

13. Afro-sonic Feminist Praxis: Nina Simone and Adrienne Kennedy in High Fidelity / Daphne A. Brooks

14. Hip-Hop Habitus V.2.0 / Thomas F. DeFrantz

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Hershini Bhana Young

Melissa Blanco Borelli

Daphne A. Brooks

Soyica Diggs Colbert

Nadine George-Graves

Rickerby Hinds

Jason King

Soyini Madison

Koritha Mitchell

Tavia Nyong′o

Carl Paris

Anna B. Scott

Wendy S. Walters

“With this compelling volume, DeFrantz and Gonzalez provide less a settled corpus of methodologies applied to a canon of academically sanctioned performance genres than an articulation and elaboration of black corporealities, vocalities, and ‘sensibilities’ across a heterogeneous field of performative enunciations--’high’ and pop culture, geographically dispersed and diasporic. . . .  This promises to become a key work. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.” — R. Remshardt, Choice

"This is theory that dances. [...] Black Performance Theory convenes 14 scholars and practitioners of Africana performance and bids them dance and groove across national, hemispheric, oceanic, planetary, disciplinary, epochal, formal, and methodological boundaries in pursuit of blackness in motion." — La Marr Jurelle Bruce, The Drama Review

“With this compelling volume, DeFrantz and Gonzalez provide less a settled corpus of methodologies applied to a canon of academically sanctioned performance genres than an articulation and elaboration of black corporealities, vocalities, and ‘sensibilities’ across a heterogeneous field of performative enunciations--’high’ and pop culture, geographically dispersed and diasporic. . . .  This promises to become a key work. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.” —R. Remshardt, Choice

"This is theory that dances. [...] Black Performance Theory convenes 14 scholars and practitioners of Africana performance and bids them dance and groove across national, hemispheric, oceanic, planetary, disciplinary, epochal, formal, and methodological boundaries in pursuit of blackness in motion." —La Marr Jurelle Bruce, The Drama Review

"This crucially important critical volume highlights the collaborative work of the Black Performance Theory Group, emphasizing the significance of black bodies in motion. A moving work!"
— Jennifer DeVere Brody, author of Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play

"[Black Performance Theory] is a palimpsest of black performance histories, practices, affects, and ideologies. . . . Exceeding iterations of ready-made blackness and overcooked theories of performance, this volume honors the charge to theorize outside the expected and to say something new."
— D. Soyini Madison, author of Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance, from the foreword

"I do not know of any other anthology that examines black performance as theory and method, and does so across multiple disciplines and performance genres. Black Performance Theory brings together contributions from important scholars whose work is vital to the ongoing conversation about black performance. It is a must-read for those seeking to understand race through the analytic of performance."
  — E. Patrick Johnson, author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity

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