FIVE ON THE BLACK HAND SIDE/

DAPLINE!

Project Proposal
PROJECT STATEMENT

Five on the Black Hand Side is a project exploring gestural languages that were born in African American
communities during the 1960s and 1970s, including the “the dap” and the black power handshake. When we see
youths, athletes, or even President Obama giving a fist bump or dap, we think of these gestures as mere greetings
and are not aware of the origins and historical significance of these languages.
Historically, the dap is both a symbol among African American men that expresses unity, strength, defiance, or
resistance and a complex language for communicating information. The dap and the black power handshake,
which evolved from the dap, were important symbols of black consciousness, identity, and cultural unity
throughout black America.

The dap originated during the late 1960s among black G.I.s stationed in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. At a
time when the Black Power movement was burgeoning, racial unrest was prominent in American cities, and draft
reforms sent tens of thousands of young African Americans into combat, the dap became an important symbol of
unity and survival in a racially turbulent atmosphere. Scholars on the Vietnam War and black Vietnam vets alike
note that the dap derived from a pact black soldiers took in order to convey their commitment to looking after one
another. Several unfortunate cases of black soldiers reportedly being shot by white soldiers during combat served
as the impetus behind this physical act of solidarity.

Such events, combined with the racism and segregation faced by black G.I.s, created a pressing need for an act
and symbol of unity. The dap, an acronym for “dignity and pride” whose movements translate to “I’m not above
you, you’re not above me, we’re side by side, we’re together,” provided just this symbol of solidarity and served as
a substitute for the Black Power salute prohibited by the military.

White soldiers and commanding officers deemed the handshake a threat under the misconception that the dap
was a coded language of potential black insurrection. In fact the dap was also a coded form of communication
between soldiers that conveyed necessary information for survival, such as what to expect at the battlefront or
what had transpired during an operation. The dap was banned at all levels of the military, and thus many black
soldiers were court-martialed, jailed, and even dishonorably discharged as a punishment for dapping. Military
repression of the dap further cemented a desire for a symbol of solidarity and protection among black men.

Conversely, later in the war, the military saw the utility of using the dap in medical treatment of black combatants
with post-traumatic stress disorder, creating a program of “dap therapy.” The military would bring in black G.I.s
fluent in the dap to dap with these men to build their trust up to accept treatment from white doctors and staff.

In 2013, LaMont Hamilton began a series of photographs called Five on the Black Hand Side that image African
American men performing the dap. I make these through identifying particular communities of men of different
cultures and ages who participate in the culture of the dap, interviewing them, and photographing their
handshakes.
Five on the Black Hand Side

LaMont Hamilton - Five on the Black Hand Side Panel 1 of 3; 120 total handshakes. (60 x 90in each panel)
(Detail view 10x10in)
Dapline!

In 2015 LaMont Hamilton began to adapt Five on the Black Hand Side into movement. This led to a collaboration
with Andre Zachery and the creation of Dapline!. The title is derived from A.R. Flower’s depiction of real dapping
rituals amongst the Bloods during the Vietnam War in his book DeMojo’s Blues:

"...a long line of Blacks and Bloods stood leaning up against one of the walls. The dapline. Starting with the first
man [they] dapped their way down fist slapping in an intricate version of the dap.  Two fist slaps, the backhand,
the thumb hook, handshake, wrist grip, and the handshake grasp. Thick brass bracelets on their wrists clink to the
beat.”

Dapline is an evening-length choreographic work with 6-8 male performers. This work was conceived from several
workshop showing in New York over a one year period. The most notable showing was the final work-in-progress
showcase of the work during the Performance Project residency @University Settlement in the Lower East Side.
This showing garnered a review from the New York Times who called it "rich in emotional nuance and gestural
beauty" and named one of the NYT best dance shows of 2015.

Through movement, sound and visuals, Dapline! attempts to elicit that space in between, where the dap moves
inter-generationally, stirring sensations of love, brotherhood and solidarity. The intention of this project is to show
how at the root of dapping, there is a constant response of intimate understanding and connection in the face of
oppression. To quote Fred Moten, "what occurs...is the emergence of an art and thinking in which emotion and
structure, preparation and spontaneity, individuality and collectivity can no longer be understood in opposition to
one another.” This performance seeks to bring to the table the ever-relevant issue of Black existence in the United
States relating to masculinity and image.

The work had a premiere at the Schomburg Center in Harlem in February 2016. At the same time collaborative
performances for work were held at the Studio Museum in Harlem and a community engagement initiative at
Ingersoll Community in Brooklyn in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Art
(MoCADA).
Dapline! at Schomburg Center NYC 2016
Dapline! at The Studio Museum in Harlem
This Da Good Part

Accompanying the premiere of Dapline! at the Schomburg Center in NYC in February of 2016 was the three
channel film installation by LaMont Hamilton This Da Good Part (19 minutes run time). This work represents the
third element of Hamilton’s umbrella project Five on the Black Hand Side.

Using a montage of original footage shot by Hamilton and archival footage from various source such as verite films
and newsreel This Da Good Part traverses the environment animating the dap in attempts to visualize the idea
fellowship imbued in the gesture in filmic terms.

Currently there is talks with CBS to have special access to the newsreel archive in order to create a companion film to this work.

(Screenshot from the film This Da Good Part; three scenes from the film)
REVIEWS
"rich in emotional nuance and gestural beauty”
-Brian Seibert, New York Times

“very affecting...a moving demonstration of community and solidarity”

-Jamie Shearn Coan, Brooklyn Rail

“The idea of the dap is addressed both in spirit and, later in the piece, in technical
execution. The viewer marvels at the unity and elegance of this corps of men, the clean
architecture of their shifting arrangements and movements in space, the softness and
tranquility that can emerge when masculinity is unshackled, given more than one narrow
definition.” -Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Infinite Body, July 2015

Named in the Best of Dance 2015 by the New York Times

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVES

The impetus behind the work is one of solidarity and community building so engaging outreach programming is a
vital component. Community engagement opportunities are sought with each showing of this work. Taking on
multiple forms from artist talks, workshops and socially oriented and relevant discussions community
engagements are at the heart of the mission for this work.

Examples of Previous Community Engagements

Performance Project @University Settlement

Critical Practice through Movement was a month long intensive as a part of the Performance Project @University
Settlement Artists-in-Residence Program by LaMont Hamilton and Andre Zachery. This workshop focus on critical
and interrogative engagement through dance/movement and an interdisciplinary approach.
In this workshop, with the support from Settlement House, we collaborated with the teens from New Youth
Movement Collection (NYMC). These six young dancers (ranging in ages 16-19) were given several pieces of text/
poems and asked to discuss it critically in order to interpret it physically creating, in a sense, a somatic exegesis of
the work. Further discussions were then held in order to think through the social implications embedded in both
the text and the movement they created unlocking art's capacity to be an agent for critical engagement.
The intention of this workshop was to extend the capacities of a dance workshop, to expound on criticality
through movement and explore an interplay of various mediums to create a cohesive statement. Instead of
teaching phrases the aim of this workshop was to use an interdisciplinary approach to the overall creation of a
piece.
Through this process each student created scores (tasks) which we complied in a study piece which was
performed publicly in several locations around the Lower East Side in NYC. The idea wasn’t to create a spectacle
but interrogate movement in a public sphere and how effective performance could be used as a way to consider
the social gestures of bodies on the line, to use Danielle Goldman’s phrase, in order to think about the body as a
tool for nonviolent protest.
This workshop culminated in a performance Untitled: Where is the Romantic Life where the New Youth Movement
Collection performed representational actions of work and struggle among the words of Amiri Baraka. His poetry is
spoken first in phrases scattered across the cast in a fugue-like manner (“I want what I want […] I want what you
have, having nothing, myself.”), and then by two seated performers who read a post-apocalyptic scene from
Primitive World: An Anti-Nuclear Jazz Musical.
Ingersoll Community Center

Coinciding with the February 2016 showing of Dapline! at the Schomburg Center and the museum iteration of the
work at The Studio Museum in Harlem was a community engagement of the work at the Ingersoll Community
Center in Brooklyn culminating in a excerpt performance. In this public engagement, a part of the overall mission of
this work, the performer in Dapline! conducted workshops with youth at the center. The evening also presented an
opening performance by Ingersoll Center Youth Drumline, followed excerpt of the evening- length work and a Q &
A with performers.
TOURING PACKAGE

Theatrical Rendition

- Full-Length Performance - 60 minutes - 6-8 performers + Vocal Artist

- Full Lighting and Tech Setup

Gallery/Museum Rendition

- Gallery Rendition: Immersive Performance

- Cast / 3-5 Performers

- Customized performance


Media Installation (Video and Projection Design)

- Video Installation of the three channel work This Da Good Part

- Exhibition of the photographs Five on the Black Hand Side (for museum/gallery exhibitions only)

Community Engagements

- Community engagement opportunities are sought with each showing of this work. We will look to work with
local organizations to create dynamic programming leading up to the showing of the work. These engagement
include but are not limited to artist talks, workshops and lectures.
BUDGET

Descriptions Number Cost

Artist Fees 2 $ 8,000 $ 16,000

Dancer’s Fee 8 $ 1,000 $ 8,000

Tech (lighting, sound design) 1 $ 1,000 $ 1,000

Lecture Honorarium 2 $ 500 $ 1,000

Community Engagement Director of Operations 1 $ 1,500 $ 1,500

Producer 1 $ 1,500 $ 1,500

Production Assistance(s) 2 $ 350 $ 700

$ 0

Total $ 29,700

Please Note: this budget for the performance excludes the travel and lodging costs. Also, the amount is a
estimate, the actual budget will based on the institutions budget, the scope of the exhibition, etc
EXCERPT FROM LINEAR NOTES REVISITED
BY LAMONT HAMILTON

With Dapline! (the performative element of Five on the Black Hand Side) the pièce de résistance of the night,
what’s at play is not a literal translation of the dap, the root of the piece. What’s at play is something more,
something ephemeral, heady (as the work has been called). What’s at play is a feeling, feelings. What we’ve
attempted is to elicit just that space in between, where the dap moves (intergenerationally) and moves (the stirring
sensation of love, brotherhood, solidarity). To quote Fred Moten, “what occurs...is the emergence of an art and
thinking in which emotion and structure, preparation and spontaneity, individuality and collectivity can no longer be
understood in opposition to one another.”
The spirit of brotherhood moves through this entire showcase. It’s an initializing embrace that locates the
continued usefulness and relevance of unity in the face of the current societal issues and tragedies. Not “Black
Lives Matter” but blackness as matter moving throughout the space. Real and present. The interest here is
connections, connectivity, connected material. Those hidden intersections. What animates this work is the notion
of “self-deconstruction infused with the desire for another freedom.” A disruption or eruption (perhaps more
appropriately) that is a railing against, and doubled as, a reclamation of histories otherwise appropriated and
misrepresented.

EXCERPT FROM NECESSARY LANGUAGE: CRITICAL TEXT FOR DAPLINE!

BY ANDRE ZACHERY

Coded language is used within every idiom of Blackness. From the mother continent to the various Diaspora, it is
at once comical, tragic, euphoric and reflective. It is amorphous. Yet this language is universally understood
between Black bodies from disparate origins and timeframes. It is the bond that defies the laws of human
understanding and speaks to the divine existence that have guided the spirits of those that came before and those
yet to come through temporal vessels.
This performance and visual project is beyond an artistic statement, it is a glimpse into a galactic spectrum. Like a
beam of ultra- violent light shooting through a tiny opening in a black hole, illuminating a small passage of intimate
hieroglyphics rendered invisible by the darkness. As brother Curtis May eld exclaimed, “....right on for the
darkness...”
And yet, here we are. Gathering to pay homage to those that made sacrifices willingly and unwillingly under the
brutal circumstances of their times. To those that found their way home, through life and death – to the ones that
patiently waited on their return. To the omega of their circle that ends at our now anxious alpha moment.