In Shapeshifters, Dr. Aimee Meredith Cox illustrates Black girls living in Detroit’s who participated in Fresh Start Shelter’s many programs. In analyzing performance both on and offstage, Cox gets to the heart of issues surrounding gender and sexuality, the mappings of the Great Migration, and impact on contemporary Detroit as experienced by the Brown family women. Cox’s work makes an invaluable contribution to studies of Black girlhood, feminist theory, and ethnography. Cox uses the concept of “choreography” to map the ways in which these young women shift, maneuver, and manage their bodily and social experiences ( p. 28–29). She draws on her personal knowledge of being a former dancer with Alvin Ailey to define choreography as both an movement practice experienced by the women in the shelter for self-expression and as a theoretical framework that defines the subtle movements of negotiating contemporary Black girlhood. As Cox describes it, “Choreography comes to stand for the ways the Black female body acts upon and alters the spaces it inhabits, making room for itself at the intersections of various oppressions" (p. 29).
In her opening chapter, Cox follows three generations of women in the Brown family, specifically highlighting a young woman named Janice and her relationship with her family. It chronologically begins with their move to Detroit from the South in the 1960s and how Janice embodies this in her personal construction of her own Black girlhood. In Chapter 2, Cox narrates a period of institutional transition at Fresh Start under the problematic leadership of a former automotive executive, Camille, and the subsequent protests from both residents and staff. Chapter 3, recollects of an early protest at the shelter, and also examining the ways Black women and girls choose to describe themselves and their actions. Chapter 4 looks at the performance of sexuality through the anecdotal evidence of an out lesbian woman named Dominique and those who emulate her. This chapter beautifully explains the sexuality and class dynamics at Fresh Start. Finally, Chapter 5 recounts Cox’s involvement with launching The Move Experiment and an offshoot project founded by Janice, BlackLight. These are two projects that looked to form ways for Black girls to express themselves and their lives through dance.
Seeing The BlackLight Project as a Dream Space
Cox successfully articulates in this text that shape-shifting as seen in The BlackLight Project can be enacted not only for personal gain and growth, but also extended beyond the self to effectively transform institutions and persons. In this way, personal performance can be read as an inherently political path to profound resistance. In this critical dream space, Black girls are able to employ both performance and choreography to gain full citizenship which too often evades them in society. Moreover, sometimes written language imposes inherit limitations and body movement, expression and language offer us a wider breath to articulate Black Girl Magic and Freedom in new, powerful ways.
In her opening chapter, Cox follows three generations of women in the Brown family, specifically highlighting a young woman named Janice and her relationship with her family. It chronologically begins with their move to Detroit from the South in the 1960s and how Janice embodies this in her personal construction of her own Black girlhood. In Chapter 2, Cox narrates a period of institutional transition at Fresh Start under the problematic leadership of a former automotive executive, Camille, and the subsequent protests from both residents and staff. Chapter 3, recollects of an early protest at the shelter, and also examining the ways Black women and girls choose to describe themselves and their actions. Chapter 4 looks at the performance of sexuality through the anecdotal evidence of an out lesbian woman named Dominique and those who emulate her. This chapter beautifully explains the sexuality and class dynamics at Fresh Start. Finally, Chapter 5 recounts Cox’s involvement with launching The Move Experiment and an offshoot project founded by Janice, BlackLight. These are two projects that looked to form ways for Black girls to express themselves and their lives through dance.
Seeing The BlackLight Project as a Dream Space
Cox successfully articulates in this text that shape-shifting as seen in The BlackLight Project can be enacted not only for personal gain and growth, but also extended beyond the self to effectively transform institutions and persons. In this way, personal performance can be read as an inherently political path to profound resistance. In this critical dream space, Black girls are able to employ both performance and choreography to gain full citizenship which too often evades them in society. Moreover, sometimes written language imposes inherit limitations and body movement, expression and language offer us a wider breath to articulate Black Girl Magic and Freedom in new, powerful ways.
Check Out Dr. Aimee Cox explain The Blacklight Project's major tenants.
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