This dissertation examines dance practices by choreographers and visual artists from the late 20th century whose work incorporates a range of (often marginalized) communities in order to address the social issues of their time. I argue that these participatory and collective dances by Anna Halprin, Adrian Piper, and Bill T. Jones are overlooked in the nascent genealogy of social practice that has yet to consider dance as either a medium or conceptual frame. Conversely, I contend that the frame of social practice addresses a gap in dance studies that has yet to contend with the ethics, power dynamics, and history of community-based and community-sourced dance practices. Through the conscious deployment of bodies in space, social practice often appears as staged encounters, and performance studies scholars, such as Shannon Jackson, have analyzed it as such. Yet, I argue social practice is also inherently choreographic. By bringing a dance framework to social practice—and an art historical framework to dance studies—I demonstrate the synergy between social practice and the ethos of Black social dance: improvisation, community, and collectivity. Such connections and influences prompt the need to elaborate new frames and categories around what I call “social practice dance.”