Chapter 1 Timeline

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  • African-American Migration

    1900-1920 migration to NYC tripled in this time period.

  • Charles Williams

    staged annual demonstrations at Hampton

  • Helen Tamaris

    danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and appeared in Music Box Revenue

  • Immigration Act

    enacted and heightened sensitivity to systematic discrimination.

  • Ted Shawn

    First Performed at the Hampton Institute in Virginia

  • Hemsley Winfield

    founded a company titled the New Negro Art Theatre

  • Ted Shawn

    published an account that envisioned new forms for American dance, including the dream of men dancing; called The American Ballet

  • Georgia Douglas Johnson

    Blue Blood won the Opportunity contest for black-authored drama

  • Bruce Nugent

    short story Smoke, Lilies, and Jade was the first openly gay fiction

  • Helen Tamaris

    performed her first independent concert in New York

  • Helen Tamaris

    produced her own concert in January at the Little Theatre on West Forty-fourth street

  • Helen Tamaris

    choreographed 9 dances set to spirituals to 1944

  • Helen Tamiris

    premiered two dances set to spirituals, Nobody Knows de Trouble I See and Josua Fit de Battle ob Jericho

  • Hemsley Winfield

    Salome was performed at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village

  • Ted Shawn

    created Jacob’s Pillow (a venue for dance training and production)

  • Harlem Renaissance

  • Dance Repertory Theatre

    comprised of name slike, Martha Graham, Humphrey, Weidman, Tamaris, and for some time De Mille

  • Edna Guy

    premiered Get on Board Little Chillun and Weeping Mary at the concert titled the First Negro Dance Recital in America

  • John Martin

    articulated a critical conundrum that took Negro dancers a decade to resolve in his review of the First Negro Dance Recital in America

  • Gilfond

    reiterated the critical conundrum the John Martic first scripted for Negro dancers

  • Helen Tamaris

    premiered her first Negro Spirituals on April 29th

  • Hemsley Winfield

    staged Four Spirituals for his company at the Harlem Academy. Included The Slave Ballet adapted from Salome in his concert at Harlem

  • Charles Williams

    started an on-campus dance group

  • Asadata Dafora

    all-male group presented Zoonga at the Big Red Bazaar

  • Essen

    performed as the Witch Doctor in the African village.

  • Ted Shawn

    began presenting his Religious Dances and Negro Spirituals on tour and in NYC
    Shawn and his Men Dancers visited (and would visit again in the future) the Hampton Institute in Virginia; this is where he connected with Charles Williams

  • Hemsley Winfield

    Both Crisis and Opportunity took notice of Winfield when he appeared at the Metropolitan Opera as the witch doctor in Emperor Jones

  • Edna Guy

    shared an all female company program where Ruth St. Denis discussed “Dance as an Art.”

  • Asadata Dafora

    Kykunkor, became Broadway hit in spring and summer. It opened at the Unity Theatre

  • Henry Gilford

    reported the audiences enthusiastic response in Dance Observer when reviewing a performance of Ted Shawn’s troupe at Washington Irving

  • Federal Theatre Project

    part of the “New Deal” initiative

  • H.I.C.D.G

    appeared at Howard University

  • Ted Shawn

    began a summer school for male dancers

  • Edna Guy

    appearance at the First National Dance Congress (a festival organized by leftist dancers at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association)

  • Negro Dance Evening

    Staging at YMHA on 92nd Street

  • Hampton Institute Creative Dance Group

    presented a matinee at the 92nd Street Y.

  • Charles Williams

    student company, the Hampton Institute Creative Dance Group, made its debut in New York

  • Edna Guy

    collaborated with Alisoon Burroughs, Katherine Dunham, and Asada Dafora to stage Negro Concert evenings

  • Edna Guy

    got the American Dance Association to sponsor Negro Concert evenings

  • Hampton Dancers

    Last word in the white dance press penned by Walter Terry

  • Katherine Dunham

    Debut of her company-established Negro dance as an ongoing enterprise in NYC

  • Helen Tamaris

    shifts her work to Broadway to 50s

  • Wilson Williams

    staged a solo titled Spiritual Suite at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theatre and a group work titled Spirituals at Studio 819 in Carnegie Hall

  • Helen Tamiris

    performed her danced spirituals on film

  • Helen Tamaris

    performed her danced spirituals for the last time but 14 years later she recorded 5 or her spirituals on film.

  • Helen Tamiris

    recorded five of her danced spirituals for the last time at Central High School of Needle Trades

  • Helen Tamiris

    taught all nine of her danced spirituals at the High School for the Performing Arts in NYC

  • Following Helen Tamiris's Death

    students performed her danced spirituals at a memorial program