Vodou, Salsa, Revolution by Joshua M. Hall

After a brief discussion of how to incorporate the improvisation and full-bodied practicality of dance into teaching aesthetics, illustrated with the context of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, I flesh out one section of my recent article on the role of dance in the past, present and future of the Afro-Caribbean religion known as Vodou. More specifically, I consider three pivotal moments in the history of Vodou dance, namely how (1) Petwo Vodou’s “black magic” was consciously deployed in the Haitian Revolution; (2) the newly liberated Haiti’s leaders, too, immediately outlawed Vodou; and (3) Vodou later empowered resistance to the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1914 to 1934. In closing, I note how, in the present, dance is being eliminated from Vodou, which is being reduced to a form of (middle-class white self-care) personal healing. Finally, I suggest one possible future, in which whitewashed social Afro-Latin dances such as “salsa” might, by being reconnected to their historical origins as forms of Vodou dance, be re-spiritualized and re-politicized in pursuit of revolutionary social justice.

BIO: Joshua M. Hall, clinical ethicist at UAB Medical Center (fourth-largest hospital in the U.S.), earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, and served as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University (before 40% of the tenure-line faculty were laid off, citing COVID). His research focuses various historical and geographical lenses on philosophy's boundaries, particularly the intersection of aesthetics, psychology and social justice. This includes sixty-five peer-reviewed journal articles (including in The Pluralist, Philosophy and Literature, and Oxford University’s Essays in Criticism), ten anthology chapters, and coediting (with Sarah Tyson) Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Finally, his related work in the arts includes a nomination, by the editors of Verdad literary journal, for inclusion in the 16th annual Best of the Net Anthology, one mini-chapbook collection (Bachata Adobe), and poems in numerous literary journals (recently including North Dakota Quarterly, Folio, Off the Coast, and Roanoke Review), along with thirty years’ experience in dance.