Durkin, H: Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham Dances in Literature and Cinema

"Hannah Durkin has done a masterful job of excavating the performance histories, memoirs, and cinematic records of Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham in a transnational context." --Journal of African American History "Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham is a tour-de-force brilliantly analyzing the cinematic depictions in a black Atlantic context. The full implications of the European depictions of these wonderful dancers is teased out through exhaustive attention to dancing techniques, cinematography and the two women's autobiographical writings. A must read for all scholars of African American performance and cultural politics."--Alan Rice, author of Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic "Makes a significant contribution to the field. . . . The dance performances of these artists as recreated onscreen are interpreted and read through the lens of a dance critic who interrogates the dancing body which appropriated diasporic dance techniques over which the artist did not always control."--Charlene B. Regester, African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 "The book makes a significant contribution to the field in that it adds to the evolving scholarship on Baker and Dunham. The dance performances of these artists as recreated onscreen are interpreted and read through the lens of a dance critic who interrogates the dancing body, which appropriated diasporic dance techniques over which the artist did not always have control." --Charlene B. Regester, African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 "The first in-depth analysis of African American dancers Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham's contributions to cinema." --Film History