Out of Africa: Encountering the Blackness of Medieval Dance

In the High Middle Ages, ecclesiastical authors demonized the presence of blackness in dance. In these texts, blackness symbolized depravity, idolatry, and the devil. Textual and visual sources articulated Black dance as a kind of crisis that threatens the salvation of souls. However, the encounter between European Christians and Black dancers shifted with the rise of the Crusades and long-distance travel in the Late Middle Ages. In crusader chronicles and travel literature, travelers developed an appreciation for foreign (non-European) dance, yet these encounters are colored by the colonization and racial violence from which they emerge. For a moment in Late Middle Ages, Europe gestured toward a sanctification of Black dance with the rise of Saint Maurice, the multicultural court of Frederick II, and the Black Madonna. The journey of medieval dance from derision to sanctification may inform our contemporary moment as we wrestle with the legacy of racism and biopolitics.