About: The Spirit Moves

The Spirit Moves: A History of Black Social Dance on Film, 1900–1986 is a documentary film by Mura Dehn chronicling the evolution of African-American social dance throughout most of the 20th century. In its original form it consists of nearly six hours of rare archival footage shot over the course of thirty years. Since 1987 this complete version has only been available for viewing at a select few institutions (the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Smithsonian). In 2008 the first three parts of Dehn's work, totaling two hours, were remastered and released on DVD by Dancetime Publications.