With a rich background as a dance historian, Emily Hawk’s work intricately weaves together the disciplines of dance and history, particularly focusing on the significant contributions of Black choreographers during the transformative decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Her research delves into how these artists used movement and performance to express cultural identity, joy, and self-pride, offering profound insights into the embodiment of knowledge. In this enlightening Q&A, Emily shares her motivations, transformative experiences, and aspirations at Princeton University, shedding light on the intellectual and societal impact of her groundbreaking work.

Can you share what initially motivated you to pursue African American Studies, and how this field has influenced your academic and professional development?

As a dance historian, my research is driven by a lifelong fascination with embodied knowledge and its power to humanize our understanding and study of the past. In my research on the 1960s and 1970s, I was compelled to focus on the contributions of Black choreographers who keenly understood the potency of embodiment, using movement and performance to express joy, self-pride, and cultural identity. The field of African American Studies is also deeply concerned with movements, both literal and metaphorical. The discipline poses questions about the social significance of people inhabiting shared space and the political potential of physical presence, on and off stage. In raising questions like these, the field of African American Studies has shaped my thinking about the body’s ability to communicate, educate, and generate new ideas in American life and culture.

Looking back on your academic journey, is there a particular moment or experience that you feel was especially transformative?

 I entered college with the intention of double-majoring in History and Dance. I had been fascinated with both subjects since childhood, but I thought of them as separate tracks: mind and body, intellectual and physical. Then, during my first semester, I was cast in a reconstruction of choreographer Martha Graham’s Celebration (1933), and quickly came to realize that my two interests were deeply intertwined. I was amazed to be performing choreography created eight decades ago, and began to wonder about the artist’s original intentions. I found reviews of prior performances of Celebration in newspaper databases, revealing that the dance had an archival presence beyond the moment of performance. This experience marked my first inquiry at the nexus of dance and history, and sparked the intellectual interest that continues to undergird my research practice.

What aspects of Princeton University and its academic environment attracted you, and what are you most looking forward to as you join our community?

As I join the Princeton community, I am most excited for the opportunity to accelerate my research productivity while learning from the foremost scholars in the field of African American Studies. It is an extraordinary privilege to engage in conversation and collaboration with a department and academic community that deeply values interdisciplinary inquiry. I am similarly excited to engage with the Dance program at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. I am delighted that Princeton recognizes the intellectual potential of the performing arts, and I look forward to attending student dance performances throughout the year.

In what ways do you anticipate your research will impact both scholarly discussions and societal debates?

My research highlights the intellectual vibrancy and multiplicity within the Black Arts Movement, offering one of the first scholarly treatments of a cohort of Black dancemakers who reached literally millions of Americans through performances in concert settings and city streets, and on public television. This work reveals how these choreographers not only produced popular and compelling dance pieces but also embedded specific, nuanced, and sometimes radical ideas in their art to consciously influence social discourse.

In a broader sense, my research aims to provide an accessible model that encourages more scholars to incorporate dance into their work. Unlike music, film, theatre, literature, and visual art—whose histories are often included in academic discussions beyond their subdisciplines—dance is often seen as ephemeral and challenging to document or analyze. This perception has led to its underrepresentation in scholarly discourse. However, dance is a vital and meaningful form of expression, rich with insights conveyed through gestures, body language, posture, and performance. Dance thus represents an untapped archive for scholars, containing crucial and often overlooked insights into social, cultural, and political trends.

Could you discuss any specific research projects or scholarly initiatives you aim to pursue or expand upon during your time at Princeton?

At Princeton, I will prepare a manuscript for my current book project, a history of Black modern dance in the 1960s and 1970s. This work explores how Black dancemakers of this period established an institutional infrastructure through publications, public-private partnerships, and community-based initiatives. These efforts enabled them to share their art and ideas with a national, multiracial audience during a time of significant social action and cultural transformation. I will delve deeper into the interconnections between Black dancers and artists in other mediums during the Black Arts Movement. Upon completing this manuscript, I will launch my next research project centered on the history and development of curricular dance programs at HBCUs.

How have your previous experiences and any fellowships or awards you’ve received influenced your research and academic growth?

Primary source analysis is the core of my research methodology. Access to archives–conventional, digital, and multimedia–is therefore key to my work. My Smithsonian Institution fellowship at the National Museum of American History and National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2022 enabled me to examine archives and oral histories related to the collaboration of Alvin Ailey and Duke Ellington in the early 1970s. Short-term research fellowships from the Rockefeller Archive Center, New York State Archives, Emory University, and the Society for U.S. Intellectual History allowed me to visit collections nationwide and compile a richly varied base of primary sources, including company records, grant application files, fan mail, and teaching notes. 

As someone deeply engaged in public scholarship, how do you view the role of academics in influencing public discourse and policy, and how do you fulfill this role in your own work?

 My work highlights how Black choreographers of the 1960s and 1970s used community-based performance to share their ideas with national, multiracial audiences. I seek to make my research – and in turn, the ideas of my subjects – accessible and relevant to many audiences, including the general public through venues such as blogs, periodicals, public panels, and digital humanities projects. Moreover, this work has resonance in contemporary discourse about funding and public support for artistic production. It is not by happenstance that many of the successful initiatives of the dancemakers I study coincided with a period of significant public and private investment into the arts. I underscore these points when contributing to public-facing outlets. In this way, I advocate for arts funding in the present day, emphasizing the value of dance as a vehicle for meaningful cultural expression and social change.

What teaching goals do you have for your courses, and what key takeaways do you hope your students will gain?

 My course, “Dancing New York in the 20th Century,” will interweave the history of dance with the urban life and cultural evolution of New York City. The course is designed for all students, regardless of their prior dance experience: any student with curiosity about movement, performance, and identity is welcome to join! 

Students will learn to critically analyze and write about dance performances as primary sources. We will travel to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, where we will work with audiovisual primary sources related to dance history topics. Through this course, I aim to provide students with a deeper appreciation of dance as a dynamic and influential art form. Students will also develop a robust set of writing and research skills that are applicable across disciplines. 

Outside of your professional work, what personal interests or activities do you engage in that help you maintain balance and fulfillment in your life?

 As a lifelong dancer, it is very important for me to keep dancing! I take ballet and modern dance classes whenever possible, and I find that regular dance practice greatly improves my ability to write about dance, too. I also find great fulfillment in day hiking, reading novels, and attending jazz concerts.