Civil Rights Strategies in the United States: Franziska Boas's Activist Use of Dance, 1933–1965

Abstract

At the first National Dance Congress and Festival, which was held in New York in May 1936, Edna Ocko, the dance editor ofNew Theatre Magazine, told the assembled delegates, “One cannot minimize the importance of an artist's social point of view, for it is he who, bringing his ideas before vast audiences, can organize and direct social thought” (25). Noting that young, politically aware choreographers had already embraced the political potential of dance, Ocko listed several topical social themes recently explored in choreography, including the need for “Negro and white unity”—an assertion championed by other speakers and formally adopted in the final session of the gathering when the delegates passed the following resolution: “Whereas the Negro People in America have been subject to segregation and suppression which has limited their development in the field of creative dance, be it resolved that the Dance Congress encourage and sponsor the work of the Negro People in the creative fields” (Ocko 1936, 27 and “Resolutions” 1936, 94).