From Commemoration to Embodiment: Teaching Black History Through African Diasporic Dance, Memory, and Community Practice

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Abstract

Commemoration is not only something we observe; it is something we practice. For Black communities throughout the African Diaspora, dance, drumming, ritual, oral history, and communal gathering have long served as methods of historical preservation, cultural transmission, and collective resistance. This workshop examines African Diasporic dance education as a living archive through which Black history is remembered, embodied, and passed from one generation to the next.

Drawing from the work of the Kofago Institute, this session explores how community-based dance programs, cultural celebrations, youth education, and international exchange can transform Black History Month-style programming into year-round cultural memory work. Through examples from Kofago’s Kwanzaa Celebration, Kassoumaii production, Teranga Conference, youth dance initiatives, and Senegal-based cultural research, the workshop will demonstrate how embodied practice can deepen historical understanding beyond the page, the lecture, or the commemorative event.

Participants will consider how African Diasporic movement traditions carry histories of migration, survival, spirituality, family, resistance, and joy. The session will also offer educators, cultural workers, public historians, and community leaders practical strategies for using dance and culturally grounded pedagogy to teach Black history in classrooms, afterschool programs, higher education, and community spaces.

At a time when Black history is being challenged, restricted, and politicized in public education, this workshop argues for embodied learning as a necessary tool for preserving Black historical memory. By centering the body as a site of knowledge, the session invites participants to reimagine commemoration as an active, communal, and intergenerational practice.

Sub Unit

• 111th ASALH Annual Meeting and Conference

Leader

• Kevin McEwen, The Kofago Institute Incorporated

Commentator

• Patriann Edwards, Georgia State University