Pearl Primus

• Born: November 29, 1919
• Birthplace: Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies
• Died: October 29, 1994
• Place of death: New Rochelle, New York

Dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist

Primus was a dancer and scholar whose anthropological research and experiences abroad led her to choreograph informative pieces that combined well-researched African traditions with modern African American styles of music and dance.

Areas of achievement: Dance; Scholarship

Early Life

Pearl Primus was born in Trinidad, and although she moved to the United States when she was three years old, the influence of the Caribbean remained an important part of her life’s work. Primus was known for her well-researched choreography that was inspired by and often modeled after traditional African dances. In fact, before she even considered dancing, her family’s travel experiences exposed her to ideas about Africa and her native Trinidad. Primus attended public schools in New York before moving on to Hunter College High School.

Life’s Work

Upon completing high school, Primus attended Hunter College, where she went into premedical sciences as a biology major and excelled in track and field. Upon finishing her undergraduate degree, Primus went first to New York University (NYU) to study health education, then to Hunter College to work on a M.A. degree in psychology, and finally to Columbia University, where she studied anthropology. There, while working in the wardrobe department of the National Youth Administration (NYA), she was asked to be an understudy for America Dances, an upcoming performance being presented by the NYA dance group. After being called out for a performance, Primus received enough encouragement that she sought out the New Dance Group (a politically active dance collective). Although she was much less experienced than her peers, her teachers saw her talent, and she began studying with Belle Rosette, a Caribbean dance specialist and fellow Trinidadian.

On February 14, 1943, Primus appeared in her first professional performance, Five Dancers, at the Ninety-second Street Young Men’s Hebrew Association. There, she performed several pieces including “Strange Fruit” (a portrayal of a woman’s reaction to lynching) and “Hard Time Blues” (a depiction of the struggles of southern sharecroppers). These pieces are still some of her best known, and they demonstrate a frequent hallmark in her work—the use of dance to build awareness of African American issues. Later that year, she began choreographing and performing regularly at Café Society, where her pieces included “Jim Crow Train” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (an accompaniment to Langston Hughes’s famous poem).

In 1944, Primus took a break from dance to spend her summer in the South, an experience that allowed her to study the influence of African culture in southern black culture. Having grown up in the North, Primus had no firsthand experience with the pervasive oppression and prejudice that African Americans in the South experienced; upon her return to New York in the fall, Primus had a new perspective on how to continue her synthesizing of African and African American dance. On October 4, 1944, she made her Broadway debut with several new pieces, including “Slave Market” and “Ague” (an African ritual).

In 1948, Primus won a Rosenwald Fellowship that allowed her to tour Africa. This was, in itself, a major accomplishment, because the award was given to her by the foundation’s president, who made a special exception for Primus after the foundation had decided to cease its philanthropic activities. Primus’s tour took her through Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Angola, the Gold Coast, the Belgian Congo, and French Equatorial Africa, where she used her anthropological training to study and document traditional dances. In many areas, she became somewhat of a legend; in Nigeria, locals called her “Omowale” (child returned home). Her travels were followed by a series of lecture-demonstrations in which she used performance and informative talks to communicate her ideas.

In 1953, Primus returned to her birthplace of Trinidad, where she met her future husband, Trinidadian dancer Percival Borde. During the late 1950’s, she and her husband toured together with their dance company. After a two-year stay in Liberia, they were asked to establish and direct the African Arts Center in Monrovia. Upon returning from Africa, Primus and Borde established the Primus-Borde School of Primal Dance in New York City. In 1959, Primus completed her M.A. in education from NYU, which eventually led to her Ph.D. in dance education in 1978. Meanwhile, the company that Primus and Borde began helped establish the Pearl Primus Dance and Language Institute, where Primus’s work is still studied.

In 1981, Primus appeared in one of her last performances before retiring from dance. From 1984 to 1990, she was a professor and artist-in-residence at the Five Colleges Consortium in Massachusetts before becoming the first chair of the Five Colleges Dance Consortium. She died on October 29, 1994, at her home in New Rochelle, New York.

Significance

Although Primus was never able to develop a formal technique, her anthropological research and theories left a lasting impression on the study of African American dance. Throughout her career, Primus encountered both praise for her natural, energetic style and criticism from those who doubted the skill required for African dance and the authenticity of her performances. Through her travels in the American South and Africa, Primus was able to document the advanced training that professional African dancers received within their tribes and combat the idea of one, authentic African dance by showing the diversity of African dance.

Bibliography

DeFrantz, Thomas. Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Examines African influence on African American dance and specifically discusses Primus’s influence on modern theories and perceptions.

Perpener, John O., III. “Pearl Primus.” In African-American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Provides a broad overview of Primus’s life, highlighting important achievements and historical context.

Primus, Pearl. “African Dance.” In African Dance: An Artistic, Historical, and Philosophical Inquiry, edited by Kariamu Welsh-Asante. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1996. In addition to the article by Primus, Welsh-Asante includes an introductory section titled “In Memory of Pearl Primus.” The other essays included in this book acknowledge and expand upon the sensibilities that Primus used in her research.