ABSTRACT
An important move in women’s mambo was “the head”—a dancer stands in place, weaving one hand in space, then the other, while rattling her head in response to percussion. This is the move that announces the aura-the sudden coming of the spirit-among priestesses of the traditional religion of the Akan in Ghana. I have seen it rattle the heads of possession women in Agogo, in Northern Assante. Mamboists have a theory as to how it came to New York: “the head” may have entered mambo through Katherine Dunham’s incomparable knowledge of African motion history. Several Palladium dancers studied with Dunham in the ’50s.
