This collection documents the professional and artistic career of scholar, educator, arts administrator, community activist, dancer, and choreographer Halifu Osumare and her contributions to African American dance. Osumare divided her collection into 10 categories: career overview files; materials related to her memoir, "Dancing in Blackness"; Malawi and Central Africa files; community cultural activism files; choreography projects; the Stanford University years; materials related to Black Choreographers Moving toward the 21st Century and Black Traditions in American Modern Dance; color slides; and videotapes. The papers include administrative records, choreography projects, correspondence, lectures, manuscript drafts, newspaper and magazine articles, lots of photographs and slides, programs, publication files, reviews, digital audiovisual dance recordings, and teaching and research files.

Halifu Osumare is Professor Emerita in the Department of African American and African Studies at the University of California, Davis. She is a choreographer, dancer, arts administrator, and a scholar of Black popular culture. Osumare holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and an M.A. in Dance Ethnology from San Francisco State University. She is a protégé of Katherine Dunham and a certified teacher of Dunham Dance Technique. Osumare has performed, taught, and done research in the United States, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, and Brazil and is recognized as one of the foremost scholars of global hip-hop.

4.6 linear feet (3 cartons, 2 boxes, 1 oversize folder)

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Cartons 1-2, Box 1, Digital Folders, and Oversize Folder 1A are open for research. Carton 3 and Box 2 contain videotapes and are being processed.