Ismay Andrews Explained

Ismay Andrews was one of the earliest major teachers of African dance in the United States. Her career started in 1929 as a stage actress, and she taught dance in community centers in New York City from 1934 to 1959.

Stage actor

Andrews began her career in as an actor in stage plays in New York City. These included a musical comedy, Great Day, at the Cosmopolitan Theatre in 1929,^[1] Ol' Man Satan in 1932, and the operetta Africana in 1934. She also appeared in a 1932 film, The Black King.

Dance

In the early 1930s, Andrews studied dance under Asadata Dafora. People in the United States in this era largely regarded Africans as savage and animalistic, and Dafora was part of bringing an awareness of their humanity and an appreciation for their culture.^[2] The new interest in African music and dance offered a new positive black identity rooted in ancient, pre-colonial traditions. This movement in art and culture was connected to the Harlem Renaissance and the Négritude movement.

Andrews taught in New York community centers from 1934 to 1959. She began teaching African dance at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in 1934. This makes her one of the earliest major teachers of African dance in the United States, along with Efiom Odok and Dafora. She also taught at Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which was one of the primary centers of African American culture in New York City at the time.

Her students included Chief Bey, Pearl Primus, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson,^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}, Alice Dinizulu, Alexandreena Dixon,^[7] Eartha Kitt, Eleo Pomare, Bea Richards (later a prominent actress), and Brunilda Ruiz.^[8]

Ismay Andrews never traveled to Africa, but learned African traditions through researching in public libraries.

1940s

In the 1940s, Andrews focused on the dances of East Africa. She founded and directed a dance company known as the Swa-Hili Dancers who performed re-constructed East African dances. They performed on stage at the Stage Door Canteen, in cabarets, and for the USO during World War II.

The African American community in Harlem strongly supported Andrews cultural work throughout her career.

Recognition

In May 1971, in a formal ceremony, the Modern Organization for Dance Evolvement (MODE), founded by Carole Johnson and others in New York, awarded Andrews their inaugural dance award for "a person who contributed lo the black experience in dance".^[8]

Death

She died in poverty in New York City.

See also

• African-American art#The Harlem Renaissance to contemporary art
• African-American culture
• African-American dance
• Caterina Jarboro
• Josephine Baker
• Marcus Garvey
• Zora Neale Hurston

References

• Web site: Broadway League . Ismay Andrews: Performer . Internet Broadway Database . October 10, 2017 .
• 1946 . 26 . Dance Magazine . 20 . Rudor Publishing Company . Dance Magazine . .
• Encyclopedia: DeFrantz . Thomas F. . Dafora, Asadata . 286f . Wintz . C.D. . Finkelman . P. . Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: A-J . Routledge . 2004 . 978-1-57958-457-3 .
• Book: Long, Richard A. . The Black tradition in American dance . Prion . 1989 . 9781853750465 .
• Creque-Harris . Leah . The Representation of African Dance on the Concert Stage: From the Early Black Musical to Pearl Primus . Emory University / UMI Dissertation Services . 1991 .
• Heard . Marcia Ethel . 1999 . Asadata Dafora: African Concert Dance Traditions in American Concert Dance . PhD . New York University, School of Education. . October 9, 2017 .
• Book: Heard . Marcia E. . Mussa . Mansa K. . African Dance in New York City . https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/184134 . Defrantz . Thomas F. . Dancing Many Drums: Excavations In African American Dance . University of Wisconsin Press . Studies in Dance History . 2002 . 978-0-299-17313-5 .
• Cohen . Joshua . 2012 . Stages in Transition . Journal of Black Studies . SAGE . 43 . 1 . 0021-9347 . 10.1177/0021934711426628 . 11–48 . 146288922 .
• Book: Emery, Lynne Fauley . Black dance: From 1619 to today . Second, Revised . Hightston, NJ . Princeton Book Company Publishers . A Dance horizons book . 1988 . 978-0-916622-61-9 .
• Green . Doris . 2008 . In memoriam: Remembering Alice Dinizulu (Ohema Afua Owusua) . Dance Research Journal . 40 . 1 . 99–100 . 10.1017/S0149767700001443 . free .
• Book: Needham, Maureen . Kykunkor, or the Witch Woman: An African Opera in America, 1934 . Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African Dance . Thomas F. DeFrantz . University of Wisconsin Press . 2002 . 9780299173135.
• Mundundu . Anicet Mudimbenga . 2005 . The Recontextualization Of African Music In The United States: A Case Study Of Umoja African Arts Company . University of Pittsburgh .
• Book: Richards, L. . African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography . McFarland . 1998 . 978-0-7864-0307-3 .

Further reading

• Book: Bean, A. . A Sourcebook on African-American Performance: Plays, People, Movements . Taylor & Francis . Worlds of Performance . 2002 . 978-1-134-67393-3 .
• Book: Belnap, S. . Guide to Dance Periodicals . University of Florida Press . v. 8 . 1957 .
• Dixon Gottschild, B. (1996). Digging the Africanist presence in American performance. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press
• Garafola, L. (Ed). (1994). Of, by, and for the people: Dancing on the left in the 1930s. Madison, WI: AR Editions, Inc
• Long, R. (1989). The Black tradition in American dance. New York: Rizzoli International Publications.
• Malone, J. (1996). Steppin’ on the blues: The visible rhythms of African American dance. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
• Prevots, N. (1998), Dance for export: Cultural diplomacy and the Cold War. Hanover, NH: University Press o f New England.
• Sherrod, E.G. (1998). The dance griots: An examination of the dance pedagogy of Katherine Dunham and Black pioneering dancers in Chicago and New York City from 1931 to 1946. Dissertation Abstracts International, 463. (UMI No. 9826197)
  • News: Smothers . Ronald . October 22, 1972 . But Blacks Contend Issue of Racism is Overriding . The New York Times .
• Book: Weisbord, R.G. . Ebony Kinship; Africa, Africans, and the Afro-American . Greenwood Press . Contributions in Afro-American and African studies . 1973 . 978-0-8371-6416-8 . registration . July 7, 2018 . 196.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Mayo Methot. .
2. citing and
3. Web site: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, African American Composer & Conductor Who Co-Founded Symphony of the New World, Was Born June 14, 1932. June 14, 2013.
4. Web site: Flutist Laurel Zucker & Pianist John Cozza Release 'Lil Lite O' Mine: Flute Music by Composers of African Descent,' Including Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Born June 14, 1932. June 14, 2015.
5. Web site: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, African American Composer & Conductor.
6. Web site: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, African American Composer & Conductor Who Co-Founded Symphony of the New World, Was Born June 14, 1932.
7. Web site: Chiku Awali African Dance, Arts & Culture of Rockland, Incorporated . October 9, 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180629102724/http://www.chikuawali.org/aboutus/alexandreenadixon.html . June 29, 2018 . dead .
8. Book: DeFrantz, Thomas. https://slippage.duke.edu/sites/slippage.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/%28C%29%20defrantzTOMAKEBLACKBODIESSTRANGE.pdf. Theatrical Interventions. To make black bodies strange: Social critique in concert dance of the Black Arts Movement . 90. 1998.