Death Dances

Death — a must have experience! Told in the first person, with humor, wit, and wonder, Death Dances tells the story of an African American woman's journey from the early 1950's through 2017. The unnamed narrator redefines time, encapsulating the lives of twelve women within a twelve month year of dances and songs. The narrator then, through each woman's dance and song, unfurrows her own life recounting childhood innocence, coming of age, civil unrest, social change, emerging sexual identities, the healing power of art, the devastating footprint of crime, and the restorative power of faith, hope, and love. Each death dance advances the narrator's search for her meaning of life and death. Releasing her life, she finds the answer.

Death — a must have experience! Told in the first person, with humor, wit, and wonder, Death Dances tells the story of an African American woman's journey from the early 1950's through 2017. The unnamed narrator redefines time, encapsulating the lives of twelve women within a twelve month year of dances and songs. The narrator then, through each woman's dance and song, unfurrows her own life recounting childhood innocence, coming of age, civil unrest, social change, emerging sexual identities, the healing power of art, the devastating footprint of crime, and the restorative power of faith, hope, and love. Each death dance advances the narrator's search for her meaning of life and death. Releasing her life, she finds the answer.

J.M. Curls is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She is the scion of one of the founders of Freedom Incorporated, a political organization that was crucial to the desegregation of Kansas City, Missouri's public facilities. In 1978, Ms. Curls was named one of International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation's Black Achievers and went on in 1986 to acquire the school she once directed. For over thirty years, she has been the owner and president of an associate's-degree-granting college in downtown Chicago. In 2006, Ms. Curls was awarded an honorary doctorate of pedagogy degree from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. She is also a breast cancer survivor.