Footnotes

Provenance
A private collection.

The most aesthetically significant aspect of this work is Ben Enwonwu's ability to convey grace and movement with such purposeful and considered brushstrokes. In this painting, the artist uses his preferred palette of bright blues and yellows which one often sees in his African Dances and Ogolo series. Evoking a near aquatic atmosphere, the swirling blue sky and the bright streaks of yellow in the primary dancer's dress and adornments expertly convey the dramatic and poised forward movement of the dancer. While considered, the work maintains Enwonwu's skilful ability to communicate a metaphysical feeling, through perspective and light. With arms outstretched to the sky and the use of whites and yellows that morph into the dancing figures in the background. The presence of the muted yet echoing dancers in the background creates an additional sense of motion beyond the figure's gestural composition.

Structurally, Dance Movement holds a similar composition to later works by Enwonwu such as Africa Dances (1991) with bodies poised with a forward motion, a flash of the base of a foot amongst layers of pandemonium, and arms raised to the sky. However, unlike the other movement and dance paintings created in his oeuvre, a striking sense of character emulates from the primary figure in the foreground of the scene. Adorned in jewellery, her elongated features give a regal air, however, it is her detailed and considered facial features that suggest this is a person of significance to Enwonwu.

Conceptually for Enwonwu, communicating the Negritude ideology lay in the form of the black African woman. The sinuous abstraction of a silhouette of the regal female represented his ideal of African culture; beautiful, powerful, and full of creative potential. Engaging the female subject and an exploration of femininity was a popular thematic practice for Enwonwu in the early 1970s that is also seen in the Tutu series whose subject has been precisely concluded as depicting Adetutu Ademiluyi.

Beyond the striking palette, powerful composition, and eloquent brushwork, the details incorporated into this piece further connect the extensive talent and narrative that Enwonwu aims to convey within his strongest works of art. An additional element of a blue headscarf or Gele can be seen as possibly a subtle reference to the Yoruba woman in blue (1973) or Tutu (1974) behind the primary figure of this work. Unusual still is the inclusion of plants that have been painted to the right margin of the work. While Enwonwu was a skilful landscape and vegetation painter, the fusion of his botanical subjects with his Dance series is rare. These artistic crossovers support Dance Movement in its significance as an amalgamation of Enwonwu's most successful works, condensed into this one iconic piece.

The London Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists held in November 1985 likely included the present work within its exhibition of Ben Enwonwu's work and may well have been listed as number 77, 'Dance Movement'. Completed in the same year as the exhibition, it can be concluded that this work was completed for this exhibition.

Bibliography
Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist, (Rochester, 2008)