The Apache Crown Dancers are enrolled members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and live in Whiteriver, Ariz. In this video segment, the group leader, Joe Tohonnie, Jr., talks about the long history of the dance and its role in Apache culture as the dancers perform Crown Dances.

In this video John Bullet Standingdeer a member of the Warriors of AniKituhwa of Cherokee, NC, describes the cultural importance of the ceremonial Eagle Dance, performed by the Warriors of AniKituhwa, and the social Beaver Dance, performed by the Raven Rock Dancers.

In Los Angeles, jam skaters draw from a community and culture built over generations at Venice Beach and at rinks across the city. Over the past year, roller skating hit the mainstream as a safe and relatively accessible pandemic-era pastime, its international popularity bolstered by people recording their shaky progress on social media. Skates were sold out for months, and skaters have become major influencers on Instagram and TikTok. But longtime skaters are quick to remind everyone: This isn’t a fad.

Inspired by James Brown and the Black Panthers, the Black Resurgents are one of the dance crews who pioneered Oakland's boogaloo dance, the foundation of many other funk styles. However, their cultural contributions are little-known outside of the Bay. Meet these veteran dancers passing on their tradition to a new a generation, bridging the gap between boogaloo, pop-locking and turf dancing.

Oakland, California, home to the Black Panthers, also birthed the pioneering funk-driven freestyle dance Oakland Boogaloo, characterized by strong hits and poses. In the late 1960s and 1970s, before the emergence of hip hop, the city’s African American youth took inspiration from James Brown, the Temptations, Charlie Chaplin, cartoon characters, and sci-fi robots, and created a repertoire of original moves like the “Dime Stop,” the “Hit, the “Mack Pose” and “the Ditallion.” Youth in nearby San Francisco and Richmond soon developed variants of boogaloo, respectively known as strutting and robotting. Today, these techniques are collectively known as “the funk styles,” owing to their development during the funk era. Despite its pioneering status, Oakland boogaloo’s cultural contributions are little-known outside of Bay Area dance circles.

Sixteen dancers from across the country, representing a range of dance styles, move as one being, with each dancer's moves flowing naturally into the next. Poet Chinaka Hodge narrates each dancer’s steps from all around the United States as we shelter-in-place. Inspired by Mitchell Rose's Exquisite Corps chain letter, each dancer begins in the last pose of the dancer before passing the movement.

If Cities Could Dance is a Webby Award-winning video series featuring dancers from cities across the United States. Step into the shoes of dancers from across the country who dare to imagine what it would look like if their city could dance.

Extension Project: Give your middle and high school students the opportunity to create and publish original dance videos with an accompanying artist statement with the KQED Youth Media Challenge: If Schools Could Dance.

In the prime of her career (1930 - 1960s,) African American dance legend Katherine Dunham and her company toured over 60 countries, and she performed on Broadway and in Hollywood films. She created the Katherine Dunham Technique, bringing together elements of dances from the African diaspora -- including Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad -- with modern dance and ballet. The rigorous technique is credited for bringing Black dance to the classroom and to the stage, where it has mesmerized audiences globally and transformed the world of dance.

The program Dunham created runs to this day at the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, and continues to revolutionize lives with dance and culture. Meet some of East St. Louis’ culture keepers, including Ruby Streate, one of Dunham’s most trusted teachers whom Dunham passed the baton to, and choreographer and educator Keith Tyrone Williams. Watch dancers Heather Beal and other Dunham program alums perform at the Mississippi River’s edge, in front of the Katherine Dunham Museum, and in downtown East St. Louis.

About the Arts, Care & Connection Lesson Pilot Series:Arts for Learning Northwest collaborated with Oregon teaching artists on the development of this series of four arts courses designed for K-5 students, with integrated social emotional learning content in the areas of dance, visual arts, theater, and music. This lesson is part of a pilot project, and will be shared in its final version in an Oregon Open Learning Lesson Collection. 

John “Crazy Legz” Pearson, founder of the Who Got Moves Battle League, is breathing life back into Beat Ya Feet -- the bouncy, fast-moving dance found in the streets, backyards and go-go clubs of Black D.C. At the heart of the dance style is the music: go-go, a blend of funk, call-and-response and Afro-Latin rhythms, ubiquitous in D.C.'s Black neighborhoods.

Honolulu is home to tourism hotspot Waikiki, and many of the city’s beachfront hotels host lavish luaus showcasing styles of hula influenced by Western music and instrumentation. But for Native Hawaiians, the origins of hula are deeply spiritual and rooted in Hawaii’s creation stories and the history and culture of their kūpuna or ancestors. Driven by the mele (poetry), hula marries movement with spoken word to express stories about specific deities, people, places and events.

J-Sette dancers bring energy, precision and stunts to the floor, and the Dance Champz of Atlanta are trying to take this underground LGBTQ+ art form to the next level. The roots of J-Setting are in Mississippi, at Jackson State University, where the Prancing J-Settes adapted majorette dancing, losing the batons and bringing in African American and jazz dance influences. Leland Thorpe and his team are on a mission to get the underground version of the dance form taken more seriously in the wider dance world. Thorpe is passionate about bringing more formal technique to the dance, and with his experience in Detroit studying jazz and ballet, he brings a faster pace and more sophistication to the Atlanta style.

Philadelphia has a rich history of producing world-class dance talent, from virtuoso tap dancers LaVaughn Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers to the contemporary house and street dancers from Rennie Harris Puremovement, the longest running street dance theater company in the world. And, like the signature Philly sound, the city has moves with soul.

Kwesi Anku, Kwaku Manu, and Selasi Morgan are performing artists who teach at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, CA and are members of the Bay Area's West African Music and Dance Ensemble. Originally from Ghana, they came to the US to study dance with their professor at UC Berkeley, Dr. CK Ladzekpo. They stayed in the Bay Area to spread their love of music and dance and to provide opportunities for young people in their community to express themselves, using music and dance as tools for positive change.

Houston’s zydeco dance scene brings joy and a driving rhythm to partner dancing, and in this episode, we explore the dance’s deep roots in Creole culture and music. What was called La-la in Southeastern Louisiana Creole communities became known as zydeco in Houston with the influence of R & B and the ‘King of Zydeco’, Clifton Chenier. Houston is where zydeco is thriving, evolving and reaching a broader audience, around trail-riding clubs who dance together after their rides to the accordion-driven sounds of zydeco bands with a touch of hip-hop. As infectious as zydeco is, it’s grown popular worldwide, but what hasn't changed is how zydeco brings community together in Houston.

If Cities Could Dance is a Webby Award-winning video series featuring dancers from cities across the United States. Step into the shoes of dancers from across the country who dare to imagine what it would look like if their city could dance.