Renee Charlow-- Dance We Do panel

After 20 years of research, writing, and devotion, Ntozake Shange tells her history of Black dance through a series of portraits of the dancers who trained her, moved with her, and inspired her to share the power of the Black body with her audience. In Dance We Do, Shange celebrates and honors the contributions of the often unrecognized pioneers who continued the path Katherine Dunham paved through the twentieth century. Dance We Do features a stunning photo insert along with personal interviews with Mickey Davidson, Halifu Osumare, Camille Brown, and Dianne McIntyre. In what is now one of her final works, Ntozake Shange welcomes the reader into the world she loved best.

Panelists include:

Reneé L. Charlow was Ntozake Shange personal assistant from 2014 to 2018. She is an actor, director, writer, and Theatre professor. She served as associate producer and assistant director for the production of Shange's Lost in Language and Sound at Karamu House, Cleveland, OH, and directed For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf at Virginia Commonwealth University and Bowie State University.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the literary advisor to the Ntozake Shange Revocable Trust. She is the author of Dub: Finding Ceremony, M Archive: After the End of the World and Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity and is the co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. She is the founder of Brilliance Remastered, an organization that supports underrepresented scholars, artists, and organizers.

Dianne McIntyre is an award-winning choreographer whose work is seen in concert dance, Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, film, and television. Her first dance/music company Sounds in Motion was based in Harlem. Choreography with Ntozake Shange includes: Spell #7, Boogie Woogie Landscapes, Mouths, Riding the Moon in Texas, It Hasn’t Always Been This Way, Why I Had to Dance, and Lost in Language and Sound.

Mickey Davidson, dancer, teacher, and choreographer has had performing affiliations with multiple African-American dance styles including modern dance, Swing Dance, Tap, Jazz Improvisation, and spoken word. Currently Ms. Davidson is dance director for the Jazz Power Initiative in New York, on the teaching staff of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp in New Orleans and a teaching artist for The Gloster Arts Project in Mississippi.

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