ABSTRACT
One of my first experiences of dance was watching the June Taylor Dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show. And yes, there was the brilliantly innovative choreography of Busby Berkeley in the old movies we watched every afternoon, until my mother made us turn the television set off just before dinner. But an even stronger impression was made by the way people danced around us all the time. Being migrant workers-a colony of itinerant African American fieldworkers seasonally migrating along the eastern seaboard-we were forced into a cultural enclosure that was hardly self-sufficient, though resourceful and vital in its social expressions. This enclosure imbued all social expressions-of which dance was a favorite-with a certain intensity, boldness, and daring. At various times, there was a jukebox in the workers’ common room. Later, there was a short period when we even had a jukebox in our living room!
