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Katherine Dunham (1909-2006)

Anthropologist, Enthnologue, Choreographer, Dancer, Activist, and Creator of the Dunham technique

Katherine Dunham was born in Chicago Illinois to an African American father and a French Canadian mother. Although she never anticipated a career in dance she became a pioneer to the dance world, creating the Dunham technique a style and practice of modern dance that utilizes isolations and undulations of the spine, movement that was brought over from her journey’s in the Caribbean.

She went to the University of Chicago along with her brother, and studied anthropology. She later became the first African American woman to receive a bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree in anthropology at the university.

After college, Katherine founded the Negro Dance Group and went on to put on a myriad of dance performances including a performance at the Chicago Beaux Arts Theater. There they performed A Negro Rhapsody with the Chicago Opera Company. Mrs. Alfred Rosenwald Stern was in attendance for one of their performances and was so impressed by her that she invited her to the Rosenwald Foundation, who eventually financed her studies abroad.

Katherine chose to go to Trinidad, Jamaica and Haiti. But it was in Haiti that she felt the most artistic resonance.

Katherine realized the importance of learning the dances of the other world. Because of her connections to anthropology she knew there was a whole world of movement just waiting to be discovered. She came back to the United States and immediately applied what she learned to her own practice. The Dunham technique is melded with notions of Haitian voodoo dance, creating a style of modern dance that is unlike any other.

Katherine was one of the first to do what I hope to do but on a grander scale. That is to bridge the gap between dance and cultures from around the world. The world of movement is guided by religion, spirituality, community, and celebration. I feel as though that is where dance is its most authentic self, when its practiced among its people, with no lights, no make-up, just the moves, grooves and sounds of everyday living. The expressive nature of dance allows for humans to connect in their purest form.

Katherine also gave positive exposure to a nation that isn’t always seen in a positive light. Haiti, my country is often associated with images of severe poverty, and a primal way of life. But there is so much enrichment in our lives and although there is great turmoil, there is still much to be learned. I, like Katherine, will one day give that same type of exposure to those cultures that are misunderstood and misrepresented. 

#blackhistorymonth blackdancers blackchoreographers

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“Everyone has a purpose in life. We were all born to do something. And if you can’t figure out what that thing is, I’ll tell you what you can do for me.

Matthew Bynum

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Dance Theatre of Harlem at Kupferberg Center of the Arts

A Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute

Dance Theatre of Harlem is a dance company based in Harlem, training black and Latino dancers in the art of ballet. Every year they put on a tribute to Dr. King. I got the chance to see this company in action on a cold and bitter Sunday at my school Queens College. The company performed works inspired by the culture of the civil rights movement and the black communities rising out of oppression at the wake of Dr. Kings death.

Pieces like Harlem on my Side and Bittersweet Winter really emphasizes the movement of black bodies after a long period of systemic oppression.

Harlem On My Side was a 4 part series danced by (insert dancers’ names here).The dancers moved with one another to a jazz riff (insert songs names here) with abundant energy. The dancers really set the tone of Harlem in the era of revitalization. Notice the aesthetic of cool in their stance as the duet tip toes across the stage (shown in the 9th photo). As they moved across the floor in 4 duets play with style and zest, the music and choreography creates a world of the jazz attitude. Onstage they are upbeat and move with the tempo. The choreographer was very strategic in seamlessly melding the classic stylistic nature of ballet with high energy swing dance.

Harlem on my Side is one of those artistic representations of the black experience. How through strife there is culture and through brutality there is enlightenment. The black body exists with so much resilience and this piece symbolically undoes the common caricature of black people. Harlem on my Side represents the care and functionality that we find within our common ground and through communal relationships we establish ourselves as a people to be respected and never to be replaced or erased.

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So beautiful! #dance #ballet 

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An excerpt from The Sauce Chronicles: Black Wings and Addicted Angels

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When I was fresh in love with the craft

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Get me some knee pads, extra padded.

Traditional Georgian dancing.

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youthcolor:

This might be lame, but i’m really curious to see how many dancers there are using tumblr. Reblog or like if you consider yourself a dancer, let’s see how many of us there are on here.

ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, contemporary, modern, you name it.

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An Ode To My Element To Artistry... To Innovation... To Being Ugly... To Learning Gracefully... To Getting Rid of a Destructive Force... A cheers to you my one true love ❤️ https://www.instagram.com/p/BlzJ6rIg1VBtugz-UCgz-lhMOjb-bexPuEW4Kw0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1iwzcevhva333

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An Ode To My Element

To Artistry...

To Innovation...

To Being Ugly...

To Learning Gracefully...

To Getting Rid of Destructive Forces...

A Cheers to you my one true love.

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“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end”

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Conversations by Nathan Trice

Is an artistic rendering of the literal conversations had about love, intimacy and the soul. While in residency with Nathan the summer of 2017, I worked with Charles (I forgot his last name, sorry). We spoke about our more intimate relationships that we’ve had in our past. We spoke about how those relationships shaped our perspectives on love, intimacy and the heart. Nathan had continued working on this piece and transferred it to the bodies featured in the photo.

The piece begins with the 8 dancers all evenly distributed on the stage. They each move glacially slow through an excerpt from one of the phrases. The male dancer (shown on the floor nearest upstage slightly stage left) speaks on the heart and conversations had about the heart. The dancers live within their own universes as they meditate on their movements and carefully shift weight through the feet. I observe each dancer in their own realm possessed in love and intimacy and concentrated in movement.

The piece then rapidly shifts to the partnering phrases. The dancers partner up into 4 duets and move with one another through complex and rapid phrases. The partners push, pull, tug, grip, hop, act and react with one another. You can really sense the emotion with each partner as they complete these fiery duets. As one dancers shifts the complete weight of one and carries them across and around the stage, the other dancer is rendered completely vulnerable and needs the full support of their counterpart. This act and react phrase structure is symbolic to the ideas of intimate relationships. One person is completely vulnerable to their significant other to carry their emotions and support them because they give up their soul and their being to that person. Love relationships have a soul effect where you are in direct connection with your significant other when you make love, this person infiltrates your most sensitive self. Through love you learn how to act and react to matters of the heart and although you are your most vulnerable self you learn to be apart of another.

The dancers then break out into synchronized phrases. Their movements are sharp but fluid as they complete an Egyptian style phrase. They alternate their arms in geometric shapes and quickly shift their facing stage left then stage right. They slap their knees then shift the legs back into fifth position, interlock their arms to then move through the fifth into fourth. They then do a small hop from the left to the right foot open in second, as they land they quickly move the arm down then back up and then slowly shift their focus down to the floor. This then melts into a more fluid phrase they shift their arms and body over to face backstage then interlace the arms and step back. Then moving through the front of the body they push and passè turn while reaching for the heavens. The phrasing juxtaposes one another and through spacial awareness and communication through eye contact the dancers have intimate conversations.

Conversations is a piece about the heart and soul. I was rendered completely speechless while watching because I was encapsulated by the movement and emotive sensibilities shown on stage. This piece is intense but also tranquil. You feel the heat between the partnerships as well as the chemistry between the dancers. There is a fluid and soothing vibe in the phrasing that supports the intensive rapid motions. It is the story of the heart and and soul and how they move when one falls in love.

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Magic never leaves me. #poledance

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Pole is so beautiful.

This is art.

ICONIC

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Three Rites- Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

When you look at these pictures what comes to mind?

Absolutely absurd huh?

The Three Rites trilogy by Edisa Weeks of the Delirious Dance company is a piece that puts a fine lens to the race structure of oppression dealt by the hands of white Americans. Using text, imagery, and props she makes a symbolic statement about black strife and the Black American dream.

Edisa (shown in all three photos) begins the piece in a pickaninny costume and reverse black face. She goes through transformative notions of anger, distress, and sly happiness as she she shakes and laughs and engages the audience in intense eye contact. One might say that they had the urge to look away, but couldn’t (or at least I’d say it). As an audience member I felt as though I wanted to engage in the swing of emotions that were occurring in front of me. She begins by telling her story of a family that lived in 1869, self sustained on agriculture, namely the growth of watermelons. She tells the audience about the family of 6 that lived, expanded, and progressed by the seeds that grew their fruit and how that fruit became a symbol of oppression. Black people were drawn as unkempt, immature, and lazy by whites in America all because we decided that we liked to eat watermelons.

This portion of the work she called “the undoing”. She pointed out that in America the most watermelons are consumed first by Asians, then Latinos, whites, and then blacks. Society paints a picture of what a black American looks like, hyper sexual (the dildo), lazy/unkempt (the watermelon), and violent (the gun). Edisa, in this work, aims to reverse the ideas set forth by a racist society. In a more literal way she begins to chant “I WILL, WE WILL, UNDO RACISM, I WILL, WE WILL, UNDO OPPRESSION” and requests the audience to chant with her. This is the undoing.

In the next portion of the work we hear an upbeat jazz song and a group of four dancers dressed in yellow and gold come onstage. They shake and shimmy to the beat and really enjoy each other’s movements. The make eye contact with one another and the audience and move across the stage with jubilee. One person stops and begins moving slowly as the other three watch with full intent and focus but still remain shaking quietly to themselves.

The tone of the piece changes as the jazz beat phases out to silence. The male dancer sings a song about “what makes me happy” in the audience are white balloons all labeled with different things like ‘my mama’, ‘my family’, ‘my wife’, ‘sunshine’, and ‘clouds’ he sings of these things that are at the epitome of happiness. This is the pursuit of happiness