ABSTRACT
With a close-up on the feet, this essay discusses the significance of the step-touch in dances of Africa and the African diaspora. The step-touch suggests a definition of “popular culture” outside of mass consumerism, aligned with cultures produced by and for a people. Focusing on the New Orleans Second Line tradition reveals how the step-touch performs a dancer’s geographical, cultural, and social identities. Second-liners’ footwork simultaneously connects them to one New Orleans neighborhood, an entire African lineage, and other Black communities across the Americas, while also signaling gendered and generational identities. The essay explores Senegambian influences on second-lining and then maps New Orleans’ music and dance influences on US pop culture at large by looking at footwork connections between second-lining, hip hop, and House. Historical context and first-hand accounts alternate with dance instructions to invite learning through reading and doing.
