Our Mission

To promote the people of Africa and the African diaspora through celebrating, cultivating and preserving their mythology, art and performative traditions.

About

Movin’ Legacy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to archiving contemporary and traditional dance traditions
of Africa and the African diaspora. Award-winning choreographer, director, researcher and pedagogue Jeffrey
Page launched the organization in 2016 after devoting more than 20 years to laying the foundations for its work.

Today, Movin’ Legacy addresses the urgent need to document and safeguard the centuries-long evolution of
African and African diasporic performative traditions.

Our work centers on the idea that histories have been chronicled and stored within dance—and that researching,
archiving and spreading knowledge about these histories will empower people and cultures.

The Pillars of Movin’ Legacy

Photography by Theo Gould

Preservation Pillar

Maintain a repository of African and African
diaspora dance to ensure these art forms— and
their evolutionary benchmarks and history—are
never lost. Current preservation efforts are nearly
nonexistent or fall short. Movin’ Legacy seeks to
establish a secure system for collecting and
archiving these traditions.

Cultivation Pillar

Institute activities that engage and educate.
Through dance classes, lectures and workshops,
dancers of all levels and backgrounds can
experience the evolution and rich heritage of
Africa and African diaspora performative
traditions. Outreach will include partnerships with
industry professionals, schools, colleges and
community-based organizations.

Photography by Seed Lynn

Celebration Pillar

To promote civic engagement and discourse,
Movin’ Legacy showcases the evolving structures
that characterize African and African diaspora
dance. It is on this platform that the importance of
performative dance, and the culture that
determines it, can truly be realized and
acknowledged.

Programming

An intensive performing arts curriculum will develop talented young singers, dancers and actors aged 14 to 18. Youth must have an interest in enhancing their technical skills and exploring their creative abilities in a nurturing environment. The program will offer robust tutelage and rigorous training opportunities, helping youth to develop bold, specific and clear voices.

With sponsored travel to African countries, the GRIOT Project immerses a group of dedicated researchers in learning how African culture has influenced dance arts worldwide. In their journey, researchers will study the ethnology of dance traditions and their sociopolitical context. Information collected through this project will be used for further study, taught in small and large group settings, archived in the repository, and disseminated at Movin’ Legacy’s biannual “The Festival” event.

A multi-day, biannual event that features dance and the many facets that contribute to its civic viability, this anthropologic hub will allow dancers, choreographers, K-12 educators, professors, researchers and families to collectively celebrate the dance legacy of Africa and the African diaspora.

A snapshot

Movin’ Legacy founder and director Jeffrey Page traveled to Senegal in December of 2019 to study
improvisation within dance—a complex art that has fascinated both artists and neuroscientists. The
systemization of structuring choreography—a Broadway show or an opera—might seem to make the
finished product devoid of, and even antithetical toward, improvisation as a craft and a tool for
serious artmaking. But in truth, improvisation is almost always present—especially in Senegal, where
improvisation has a long history within dance tradition.

At the dawn of the Jazz Age, writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson used the phrase
“jes’ grew” to describe how a soloist would navigate the musical terrains of a structured composition
while improvising and recalibrating with deft agility. Johnson reclaims this phrase from a character
named Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Topsy, a “black-face” character in the
novel, is asked how she was made and replies by saying “I s’pect I just growed. Don’t think nobody
never made me.” Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. speaks of Johnson’s reclamation of
the phrase as “Signifyin(g),” as Black people so often do, to speak about the alchemy and presence
of “jes’ grew.”

Movin’ Legacy’s Page was curious about how the spirit
of “jes’ grew” takes on various shapes in Senegal,
where the Wolof people believe that to fully understand
Sabar dance and music, it is vital to speak the Sabar
language, and where Mbalax—popular music
accompanying specific dance movements—was
inspired by James Brown’s “take it to the bridge”
moments marrying improvisation and structure.

The music of Senegal’s djembe and Sabar drums is
much more than a polyrhythmic phenomenon: it is a
way to encourage creative spontaneity, showing
dance as an informational carrying vessel—and a
conversation that fosters community.

This journey exemplifies the immense importance of
Movin’ Legacy. Improvisation necessitates more study,
especially as it pertains to dance. Countries like
Senegal, where dance and music are ever evolving, are
magnificent places to study these phenomena,
showing us how our own culture must embrace—and
grow through—the art of improvisation.