The Spirit Moves

The Spirit Moves (1987)

A History of Black Social Dance on Film, 1900–1986 is a documentary film by Mura Dehn chronicling the evolution of African-American social dance throughout most of the 20th century. In its original form it consists of nearly six hours of rare archival footage shot over the course of thirty years.

Date of release
1987-12-17
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 59m
Genres
Documentary, Music
Director
Mura Dehn

Casting

Interesting facts

The Spirit Moves: A History of Black Social Dance on Film, 1900–1986 is a documentary film by Mura Dehn chronicling the evolution of African-American social dance throughout most of the 20th century. In its original form it consists of nearly six hours of rare archival footage shot over the course of thirty years. Since 1987 this complete version has only been available for viewing at a select few institutions. In 2008 the first three parts of Dehn's work, totaling two hours, were remastered and released on DVD by Dancetime Publications.

Background

Dehn grew up in Russia and was trained as a ballet and modern dancer in the style of Isadora Duncan. She was exposed to jazz as a child but didn't think much of it until, at the age of 20, she saw Josephine Baker perform in Paris. She was thrilled with the vitality of the style: "Before, European couple dancing was very formal—too pleasing and too relaxed. But life was not like that. We needed something to energize us, to give us abandon.

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