Pearl Primus film collection

circa 1970-1989

Pearl Primus (November 29, 1919-October 29, 1994) was a dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. She has been internationally recognized as a pioneer of modern African American dance.

Born in Trinidad, Primus immigrated with her parents to New York City in 1921. After earning a degree in biology and pre-medical science at Hunter College, she began dancing with the activist dance collective New Dance Group in 1941.

Primus studied the dance expressions and cultural practices of African and diasporic local communities on research trips in Liberia, Senegal, and the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), as well as the American South. Her fieldwork formed the foundation for dance pieces such as Strange Fruit (1945) which addressed the injustices and civil rights activism she observed in the Deep South, and the Liberian welcome dance Fanga (1949) which reflected her research into West African folkways.

Primus received an MA in education (1959) and a PhD in dance education (1978) from New York University. She directed the Konoma Kende Performing Arts Centre in Liberia (1959-1961), and founded the Caribbean American Institute of Dance. Together with her husband and collaborator, the dancer and teacher Percival Borde, they established the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute in New Rochelle, New York in 1979. After she stopped performing, she directed the Cora P. Maloney College at State University of New York, Buffalo (1982-1984), and taught ethnic studies in the Five Colleges consortium in Massachusetts (1984-1990).

Primus performed throughout North America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. She received numerous awards including the Order of the Star of Africa from the Liberian government, the Scroll of Honor from the National Council of Negro Women, and a National Medal of the Arts. She died in 1994.