Elroy Josephs

Elroy Josephs (23 February 1939 – 8 February 1997) was a Jamaican actor and dancer who became the first black dance teacher at a British University. His style of dance fused African-Caribbean with those of Europe and Asia.

Dancing

Coming to England as a youth in 1950, Josephs began his career as a professional dancer with Les Ballets Nègres. He studied many forms of dances with various renowned teachers in the field: Indian with Ram Gopal, Spanish with Elsa Brunelleschi and Caribbean and African with Ben Johnson and Obie Shelankey. He set up a company during the sixties called Elroy Josephz Productions, which performed in cabarets in Madrid.

Acting

Along the way, Josephs made a career, performing on stage and having an acting career on television. He was one of the first black dancers to appear in West Side Story in the West End. On TV, he featured in ITV Play of the Week, Sunday Night Theatre, Dixon of Dock Green, Doctor Who (Season 4 premiere The Smugglers), Adam Adamant Lives!, The Wednesday Play, Theatre 625, Love Thy Neighbour, Stage 2 and Brideshead Revisited. On film, he was credited in The Alf Garnett Saga but went uncredited in Hammer Film's Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

In the early 1970s, Josephs started a community dance project in Camden called Workshop No. 7 and was appointed as one of the Greater London Arts Association's (GLAA) first dance animateurs.

Central to the dancer's work was his understanding of the historical importance of transatlantic slavery and its legacies.

Tributes

In November 1997, a bench and plaque was unveiled in Elroy's memory at John Moores University. As part of Black History Month in October 2012, the International Slavery Museum and Enterprise South Liverpool Academy staged a tribute show in the lecturer's memory, to spotlight his often overlooked influence on black dance culture. Over 2013-2014, the Slavery museum held an exhibition called British Dance: Black Routes which featured Josephs' relatively untold story and a display dedicated to the dancer.