Dancing the Resistance: 3 Shows Tackling #BlackLivesMatter and Beyond
If The Nutcracker just isn’t doing it for you this season, stay #woke with these three shows.
Camille A. Brown Delivers a Double Whammy
WASHINGTON, DC
Camille A. Brown isn’t known for pulling punches. As part of her Kennedy Center debut, she’ll premiere ink, an examination of African-American rituals and gestural language co-commissioned by The Kennedy Center. It’s the third and final work in her trilogy examining race and identity. ink‘s Dec. 2 premiere will be preceded by her acclaimed second installment, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, on Dec. 1. (The first, Mr. Tol E. RAncE, won a 2014 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production.) ink promises to be a powerful reclamation of black history and culture, one that can power a better future. kennedy-center.org.
A Dance Festival for First Nations Issues
Dancing Earth director Rulan Tangen. Photo by Elizbeth Opalenik, Courtesy Dancing Earth.
SAN FRANCISCO
Dancing Earth Creations and Cuicacalli Dance Company have teamed up to create the 500 Years of Resistance Festival. The two-day event spotlights contemporary indigenous choreography, addressing issues faced by First Nations peoples in California ranging from the ecological to the sociopolitical. Dec. 1–2. dancingearth.org.
Helanius J. Wilkins is Singled Out
Helanius J. Wilkins. Photo by Charles H. Black, Courtesy Wilkins.
WASHINGTON, DC
Dancer/choreographer Helanius J. Wilkins, known for his deeply personal solos, brings Triggered, a program of new and old solo and group works, to his former home. Now a professor at University of Colorado Boulder, he is joined by dancers from Boulder and special guests. A trio titled Media’s Got Me All Figured Out: Reloaded is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the issues it confronts. Dec. 3, Millennium Stage, The Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.
