Dance as body-testimony to black history in Dunham, Acogny, and Silvestre

Abstract

This article investigates the dance techniques of Katherine Dunham, Germaine Acogny, and the Silvestre Technique, proposing the concept of ‘body-testimony’ as an analytical key to understand dance as a historical inscription of Black experience. Its aim is to understand how these practices function as a living archive, a vehicle of memory, a tool for cultural and political resistance, and a means of identity affirmation within the African diaspora. The methodology combines comparative analysis of the techniques with a theoretical-analytical approach, articulating concepts from Cultural Studies, Black epistemologies, and postcolonial theory by authors such as Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, and Frantz Fanon, alongside contributions by Leda Maria Martins on corporeality, memory, and fabulation. The findings indicate that these techniques not only preserve and reinterpret cultural traditions but also generate new forms of enunciation, circulation of knowledge, and fabulation of Afro-diasporic futures. The body emerges as a central locus of agency, resistance, and creative expression, highlighting the power of Black women in constructing hybrid and transnational techniques that assert belonging and memory. The study concludes that contemporary Black dance functions simultaneously as artistic practice, living archive, and historical testimony, connecting memory, corporeality, and creativity as strategies of cultural survival and identity reinvention. This perspective offers a political, poetic, and Afro-diasporic understanding of Black bodily presence and experience in the global dance arena.