Exploring the Past through Ring Shout in Paule Marshall’s “Praisesong for the Widow” 

Looking at black music and dance development in both the US and the Caribbean, Garcia identifies how Western cultural standards dominated discussions of culture, focusing on how racialized and sexualized bodies represented the primitive and savage through performance. Using theatrical productions, film, and performance hall recitals that “reproduced” African dance as historical “evidence,” viewers and scholars alike came to believe in Africa as a space that had not changed over the centuries, a haven for historical origins to which each member of the African diaspora could trace their roots.