See Maya Angelou's early performances in the Bay Area | American Masters

💃🏾 “Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” Before becoming a world-famous poet, Maya Angelou was a dancer and calypso singer. She toured internationally, performing African and Caribbean-inspired dances, and even appeared in the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave. She often said that movement was part of her spiritual and creative rhythm—a way to express Black identity, history, and resilience. From enslaved people using coded dance movements to communicate on plantations to the