Oral Histories
Oral Histories and Personal Artwork
Listen to the stories of dance in the lives of African Americans who graduated from the University of Illinois or have lived in Champaign and neighboring communities and view artwork created by a local dancer.
Participants
Personal Artwork
Highway 99, Pencil Drawing, 2018-2019. By Michael Sherfield
Highway 99 speaks to the spread of Blues music as African Americans left the South in search of work and a better life during the Great Migration. It also reflects the migration of his own family.Between 1916 and 1970, an estimated 6 million African Americans moved from the South to the Midwest, Northeast, and Western United States. Sherfield can trace his family back to Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. He himself was born in Southern Illinois. With no Black hospitals nearby, he was delivered at home by his Great Aunt and Great Grandmother. By the end of the migration, his family had settled in Chicago and Indianapolis.
Jook Joint, Pencil Drawing, 2018-2019. By Michael Sherfield
Jook Joint was inspired by Mike Sherfield’s memories as a young man in the late 1960s, when his uncle would take him to juke joints on the Southside of Chicago that catered to Black audiences. In this colored drawing, floating above the sea of writhing dancers are the names of clubs that hosted many famous Black Blues musicians critical in the evolution of Chicago Blues music.
It was the ambiance of the small venues, with musicians and dancers crowded together, that made a lasting impression. He was drawn to the music, with its complex rhythms and driving beat. His fascination with the movements of the dancers also comes through in his images and in his movements on the dance floor in Champaign-Urbana.
Gumbo, Pencil Drawing, 2018-2019. By Michael Sherfield
Gumbo is a phrase Sherfield often uses to describe his art and his dance. Gumbo, as a concept, takes everything together; impressions and memories, images and movements, shapes and colors. As he describes it, “putting them together, and making them work so that it looks good and feels good.” In this street scene, all sorts of people dance together. Mike finds joy in this form of artistic improvisation. His works and his dance, like the Blues, express the ups and downs of life—hardships and pain, as well as the joy of living. Thus, when someone asks him, “What is that?” his favorite reply is “Gumbo!.”