Power (Empowerment) through the Body, Self, and Black Male Identity in Contemporary Theatrical Modern Dance

Postmodern articulations in contemporary theatrical modern dance have produced new black male expressions–straight and gay–that disrupt rigid and reductive representations of identity and masculinity and also open up pluralistic and libratory possibilities through the black male dancing body. I use this context to examine power (and empowerment) in the work of choreographers Bill T. Jones, Ronald K. Brown, Reggie Wilson, Nicholas Leichter, Helanius Wilkins, and Kyle Abraham, who approach the particularity of black male identity from postmodern perspectives. My idea of power, here, is inspired by Ralph Ellison’s nameless black protagonist in Invisible Man whose search for self-understanding and identity stands as both a literal and allegorical struggle for the power over one’s “visibility” and agency as a black man. Through identifying key philosophical, stylistic, and thematic representations across the choreographers, I explore how power negotiates and is negotiated around issues of self, sexuality, and identity in the black male dancing body.