My write hand man

            In her essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression”, Zora Neale Hurston delves into many art forms as they relate to African Americans, including the rare beauty of African dance. She says that it is a challenge for white individuals to dance in an African style due to their inability to understand the ever changing rhythms and expression. In Hurston’s interpretation African dance is an externalization of an inner emotion or story, yet it leaves room for the audience to impose their own feelings upon it: a mark of true art. This understanding of African American dance is expressed in many works and legacies left behind by the Harlem Renaissance. In his poem “She of Dancing Feet Sings”, Countee Cullen expresses his desire to dance and live an exuberant, passionate life despite the consequence of being seen as sinful. This is the same motivation which illuminated the art of the Harlem Renaissance, whether the consequence of sinfulness was in t...