Pole Dancing for Jesus

Flaming? ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 87-114
Author(s):  
Alisha Lola Jones
Keyword(s):  
Black Male ◽  
Gospel Music ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Male Identity ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Black Male Identity

Chapter 3 dissects the sociocultural sensitivity about the extent to which men’s dance or gesture in worship registers as queer by analyzing a case study of a man who worships God through pole fitness. Derived from ethnographic research of widely circulated Jungle Cat’s amateur “pole dancing for Jesus” performance footage, chapter 3 teases out innumerable creative processes through which men’s situating of identity takes place. Jungle Cat worships God to recorded gospel music with ritual components of private dancing and contemplation that absolve him from ecclesial, denominational, and organizational restrictions and surveillance. While anxieties about black male identity also apply to more conventional forms of men’s praise dance such as mime and step, pole dancing cultivates especially passionate responses from gospel music observers.

Examining Black Male Identity Through a Prismed Lens

2021 ◽  
pp. 136-152
Author(s):  
Rema Reynolds Vassar ◽  
Tyrone C. Howard
Keyword(s):  
Black Male ◽  
Male Identity ◽  
Black Male Identity

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

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Carl Paris
Keyword(s):  
Black Male ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Male Identity ◽  
Invisible Man ◽  
Search For Self ◽  
Black Man ◽  
Body Self ◽  
Black Male Identity

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document