Black Performance as Social Protest (FutureLearn)

Engage with artistic protests across key historical frames
The arts are a potent way of responding to issues of injustice. From slavery and lynching to incarceration and disenfranchisement, Black performance has resisted oppression across several historical frames.
On this course, you’ll read, watch, and listen to performances that illustrate various forms of artistic protest from the African Diaspora. You’ll cover chants of the enslaved and dances of heritage, before moving on to look at early 20th century migrations and United States protests.

Discover the role of performance in the Black Lives Matter movement
You’ll identify ways in which patterns of resistance from the past contribute to ongoing social justice movements, such as Black Lives Matter.
After investigating the history of Black performance as social protest, you’ll produce a reflective manifesto for achieving racial equity through performance.

Learn from experts in African American studies from the University of Michigan
This course is led by three professors at the school of Music, Theatre, and Dance at the University of Michigan, all of whom teach performance history as well as having lived experiences as Black performers.
They’ll each guide you through the importance and impact of Black performance in social protest, highlighting the intersections between the arts and social justice.

What topics will you cover?

• Week 1: Black Representation (Slavery) - Covers protest chants of the enslaved and dances of heritage
• Week 2: Early 20th Century Migrations and United States Protests (Jim Crow) - Explores lynching plays, protest songs and the Great Migration.
• Week 3: Civil Rights Struggles for Justice (Equality) and Black Nationalism - Explores music and theatre of the Civil Rights movement and Black Revolutionary Arts forms.
• Week 4: Social Justice Now: Black Lives Matter and the Performing Arts (Police Brutality) - Discusses the importance of performance past contributions to the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Week 5: Call to Action - The course culminates in a reflective manifesto

Through these specific examples, participants will identify patterns of resistance against slavery, lynching, incarceration, and disenfranchisement while analysing ways in which they contribute to ongoing social justice movements.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• how Black performance resists oppression across several historical frames.
• with performance content which illustrates various forms of artistic protest from the African Diaspora.
• patterns of resistance against slavery, lynching, incarceration, and disenfranchisement.
• ways in which patterns of resistance from the past contribute to ongoing social justice movements.

a manifesto for achieving racial equity through performance.