@article{710597,
      recid = {710597},
      author = {Thompson, Katrina Dyonne,},
      title = {Ring shout, wheel about the racial politics of music and  dance in North American slavery / [electronic resource] :},
      pages = {1 online resource (x, 242 pages) :},
      note = {Includes bibliographical references and index.},
      abstract = {"In this ambitious project, historian Katrina Thompson  examines the conceptualization and staging of race through  the performance, sometimes coerced, of black dance from the  slave ship to the minstrel stage. Drawing on a rich variety  of sources, Thompson explicates how black musical  performance was used by white Europeans and Americans to  justify enslavement, perpetuate the existing racial  hierarchy, and mask the brutality of the domestic slave  trade. Whether on slave ships, at the auction block, or on  plantations, whites often used coerced performances to  oppress and demean the enslaved. As Thompson shows,  however, blacks' "backstage" use of musical performance  often served quite a different purpose. Through  creolization and other means, enslaved people preserved  some native musical and dance traditions and invented or  adopted new traditions that built community and even aided  rebellion. Thompson shows how these traditions evolved into  nineteenth-century minstrelsy and, ultimately, raises the  question of whether today's mass media performances and  depictions of African Americans are so very far removed  from their troublesome roots"-- c Provided by publisher.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/710597},
}