Germaine Ingram – Chronicling Resistance

Author: Germaine Ingram

Germaine Ingram (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based jazz tap dancer, choreographer, songwriter, vocal/dance improviser, oral historian, and cultural strategist. She creates evening-length pieces that explore themes related to history, collective memory, and social justice, and designs arts/culture projects that explore and illuminate community cultural history. She collaborates with artists from diverse traditions and disciplines, including jazz/experimental music composers, site-specific choreographers, dance and vocal improvisers, African diasporic culture specialists, and visual/media artists.

March 8, 2021March 8, 2021

Who gets a say in a Black woman’s embodied politics?

At the time of my last blog post, I was anticipating doing an oral history interview with Louise Madison’s granddaughter, Carol. Carol and I have been in contact off and on for about the past 15 years as each of …

February 4, 2021February 17, 2021

Structuring my questions about the “wayward and wild”

“…promiscuous, reckless, wild and wayward…”

I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to approach the oral history interview I have scheduled with Louise’s granddaughter at the end of January. I’ve known Carol for maybe 15 years, since her first email …

January 4, 2021February 17, 2021

The Spidering Life of Louise Madison

In 2005 I wrote an article for the journal of the Philadelphia Folklore Project, Works In Progress, that captured some of the history and lore about Louise Madison (1911-1970), a Philadelphia tap artist who is the centerpiece of my …