当玩wright Dominique Morisseau saw the 2010 documentary “Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America,” her reaction was that of an artist, one steeped in a pragmatist’s understanding of history.

“I never knew Don Cornelius owned the rights to his own show,” she told the Chronicle, referring to the creator and host of the legendary TV series that ran from 1970 to 2006. “It’s kind of like when Ray Charles owned his own catalog. You’re like, ‘What? In the era you came up in? How did you get that?’ ”

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To have agency as an artist is a fight, she went on: “You have to sort of usurp it. People don’t give it away.”

Exploring how Cornelius achieved that power over “Soul Train,” the weekly music and dance party that for generations scaled the peaks of Black groove, style and sound, became one seed of “Hippest Trip — The Soul Train Musical,” now in a world premiere atAmerican Conservatory Theaterin anticipation of a Broadway run.

But Morisseau — the Detroit native and rock star playwright behind“Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations,”“Paradise Blue”and“Skeleton Crew”— didn’t land on a simplistic great man theory of ownership. Her musical asks: “Who gets to own the legacy of ‘Soul Train’?” Is it Cornelius, or is it the plurality of its individual dancers?

“This country values singular leadership and power,” said director Kamilah Forbes, who’s also the executive producer of Harlem’s storied Apollo Theater. “But at what cost? What is the harm? Singularity is not what builds a country. ‘Hippest Trip’ explores that.”

In a recent rehearsal for the show, Forbes modeled on a small scale what shared ownership might look like. Cast members trade off selecting warmup music, and they get to share a bit about why a song matters to them. That day, for Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be,” performer Unissa Cruse explained, “I use this song as a reminder to hold on.”

哲学反思她的彩排之后,Forbes said, “This is a story about the joy of Black culture, the joy of Black identity and individuality. That means you have to bring your full self to the circle.

“I’m not going to tell you what that full self is going to look like,” she added. “There’s guidelines we provide, but you have to fill in the color.”

For Morisseau, Forbes and choreographer Camille A. Brown, “Soul Train” was required viewing during their childhoods. If you missed a week’s episode, Brown noted of her New York youth, “you was out of it!”

“Watching ‘Soul Train’ was an opportunity,” Forbes said. “As I’m forming my own self-identity, I’m able to have a lens and a gaze from ‘Soul Train’ — how they dressed, how they wore their hair.”

She remembers practicing “Soul Train” moves in her Chicago bedroom. At a time when she saw few other people who looked like her onscreen, watching the show made her think, “Oh, yeah, that’s me.”

To watch old episodes of “Soul Train” today with Morisseau, Forbes and Brown is to see no monolithic vision of Blackness but instead a kaleidoscope — an endless font of whimsy, curiosity and soul-deep expression. In a 1973 clip of a line dance to Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” one dancer wears platform shoes that seem as tall as battleships. “He was like, ‘You’re gonnaseeme!’ ” Forbes quipped. Another dancer sports pedal pushers and knee-high red socks that match her scarf. A third dances in pigtails, red suspenders and knickerbockers; doing the splits, she looks like an overgrown doll.

Brown, a two-time Tony Award nominee, listed what she saw: “Individuality and creative identity and this idea of freedom, safe space, an opportunity to be yourself, Black joy, Black excellence.

“How do our stories live in our bodies,” she went on, “and how do we show that as we come down the line?”

“Hippest Trip” is a dance-driven musical, drawing on 40 Black social dances from throughout the decades that “Soul Train” was on the air. Many had different names in different parts of the country; what’s called “the Butterfly” in one region, where the knees point in then spread out, resembling butterfly wings, is “the Tootsie Roll” elsewhere.

Brown didn’t sprinkle these moves in decoratively. Working with associate choreographer and dance consultant Adesola Osakalumi, a veritable human encyclopedia of hip-hop, she looked at the movements the cast and creative team naturally used in informal conversations about what they were working on. “For instance, there’s one section where Don is making deals and putting his show together,” she recalled.

Brown saw Forbes make a gesture with her fists — light taps, one on top of the other, almost like chain links locking in. A social dance resembling that movement made it into that scene. Forbes joked that one has to be careful around Brown: “You might end up in choreo.”

Back at rehearsal, in the dance Brown created for the entrance of Cornelius (played by Quentin Earl Darrington), performers’ bodies made the floor beneath them turn crooked and wavy, then break apart. Beats later, they were the Red Sea parting. Busting out slithery break-dance moves, ensemble members shot each other little side glances of shared joy.

A famous host had made his grand first appearance, but it was grand precisely because of an army of excellence around him.

Reach Lily Janiak:ljaniak@sfchronicle.com