"Start with less." Those are the first words that Keren Lurie Pardes says as she guides her fellow dancers through a pre-rehearsal class in New York City. They have recently arrived to make their debut at The Joyce Theater as members of L-E-V, the small, intriguing company founded in 2013 by Israeli artists Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. Eyal is a former star dancer and choreographer-in-residence at Israel's renowned Batsheva Dance Company, and Behar is a former party producer.
Dance performances often encourage audiences to escape reality. But on July 7, dance forced the audience at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival to face it. During a performance of And Still You Must Swing, tap dancers Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and Derick K. Grant stopped mid-show, near tears, and acknowledged the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. In the previous 72 hours, Sterling and Castile had become the latest in a string of black men killed by police officers. At a candid post-performance conversation, fellow dancer Jason Samuels Smith told the audience, “These are our extended family members, our cousins, our uncles, our brothers, our fathers…You feel that pain." The evening also included guest artist Camille A. Brown performing the buzzard lope, a ritual that was once danced by slaves. “It was extremely hard," she says, but “understanding the power of movement rooted in the African-American experience made me feel proud of the history that lives in our bodies."
Pride and pain have always been intertwined for black dancers and choreographers in America. Dance has sometimes eloquently expressed this dichotomy. It has also at times reflected the country's indifference to ongoing racial violence and discrimination, allowing discourse to lean on the wobbly pillar of “diversity" instead. But as the Black Lives Matter movement has returned race to the center of the national debate, it has galvanized some artists of color and challenged white dance audiences to confront their discomfort with racial issues.
The visibility of Black Lives Matter paired with the echo chamber of social media and the heightened debate of an election year—particularly one that was something of a referendum on the nation's first black president—can make this moment feel unique. In some ways it is, simply because, as Hope Boykin, a longtime dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, explains, “We're present in it, we feel it." Brown adds, “The current sociopolitical climate makes this work even more relevant to audiences."
But both Boykin and Brown quickly add that using dance to respond to racial issues is not new. “Mr. Ailey founded his company in 1958 in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, when incredible speeches were being made, while people were marching across bridges, while people were being beaten and hosed down and had food thrown at them at lunch counters," says Boykin. Brown points to a number of her contemporaries and predecessors who have documented racism and represented the black experience over decades, including Ronald K. Brown, Nora Chipaumire, Marlies Yearby, Eleo Pomare, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.
Whether in the past or today, addressing this contentious national issue can be a creatively daunting task. But transposing the anger, pain and sadness of the outside world onto the body, and then onto the stage, is a burden that dance has embraced. “That's the very foundation of modern dance and this company, to address the issues of the day," says Ailey's artistic director Robert Battle. The company's 2016 winter season at New York City Center illustrates its ongoing contribution to the dialogue on race. Vintage examples include the first piece Ailey made for his company, Blues Suite, a vibrant portrait of a community nearly absent from dance stages at the time, and his Masekela Langage, a 1969 work about apartheid in South Africa. Newer works include Rennie Harris' formidable Exodus from 2015, which includes haunting images of violence in the streets, and Untitled America, by Kyle Abraham, an intimate depiction of the effects of mass incarceration on black American families. Boykin's new work, r-Evolution, Dream, is inspired by the speeches and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I named it r-Evolution with a little 'r,' " she says, “because the evolution is more important than the revolt, to me."
Although Boykin's goal is to connect with audiences, rather than alienate them, it doesn't mean she is offering easy reassurances. She and other black artists are ready to confront audiences. “It is definitely okay for me to tell you that I'm angry, to tell you that my heart is broken, to tell you that you've offended me," says Boykin of her work. Battle agrees: “That's what we're supposed to do as artists, is challenge systems."
Donald Byrd, for one, has been challenging audiences for decades. In the past year, the veteran choreographer, now at the helm of Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theater, adopted the season theme “#RACEish" that included The Minstrel Show Revisited, his provocative exploration of the history of blackface. After each show, Byrd invited audience members—mostly white, he points out—to share their thoughts and found that a common response was discomfort, which he welcomes. “If it makes you uncomfortable, you should go running toward it," he says. The theater, he adds, is a “safe place to be uncomfortable."
Brown has long explored the modern American black experience in her work, but the shift in national consciousness has affected the way audiences and presenters receive it. For example, she notes that with 2012's Mr. TOL E. RAncE, an explicit indictment of racial stereotypes that coincided with Obama's reelection, “I got pushback because some people saw America as being a post-racial society," she says. “I was told the conversation was dated and no longer needed to be discussed." She says that last year's BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play is not a political piece, but notes that people's expectations and perceptions of black girls sometimes cause them to view it that way. Some presenters see it as a piece that their audiences need to prepare for. In fact, the work uses childhood games to explore universal coming-of-age themes. “What about seeing black girls playing do people have to get ready for and why?" she asks.
Many choreographers resist the expectation that they must use their art to make a statement. Abraham laments the “slack" he's received from some white critics for what they see as “watered down" politics in his work. He defends his freedom to create in the postmodern tradition of abstraction. “I'm not hyper-literal," he says, which he considers one of dance's strengths. “The abstraction of the art form can help people individualize the experience."
Paloma McGregor, a former member of Urban Bush Women and Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, founded the initiative Dancing While Black in 2012 to bring the voices of black dance artists to the center of the artistic conversation. She points out that while art and activism may inform each other, for some artists they are separate practices. “They're not making work necessarily about racial justice, they're making work that honors their humanity and vision and where they come from," she says. Even an article like this, which asks black artists to comment on politics in their work, demonstrates the inequity of expectations, since white dance artists are rarely required to explain the politics that they do or do not include in their work. When asked to comment on this contradiction, Brown simply says: “Exactly."
In the current climate, it can be tempting to read politics into every-thing. Audiences and critics see statements where none are intended. “Unfortunately, I have encountered those who insist on labeling surface meanings of race to my works based on the appearance of my dance company," says T. Lang, an Atlanta-based choreographer and chair of the dance department at Spelman College, a historically black college for women. Some viewers and writers can see work by black artists as protests even when the artists themselves make no such claim.
If an artist does choose to address politics, finding the right tone can be challenging. Byrd detects the need for “uplift" from dance audiences, and a desire to “see that there's hope." He wonders whether that hinders some artists from addressing race in more direct ways. “I think artists are conflicted because the public wants a safe delivery system, an easy delivery system," he says.
During the post-performance discussion of And Still You Must Swing this summer, Jason Samuels Smith pointed to another facet of that conflict. White audiences “love the dance moves," he said, “but they don't want to connect with the people and the communities who are creating these dance moves." In other words, we can't cheer a tap performance and ignore the systemic racism in America that shaped the daily experiences of the form's founders and continues to affect many of its practitioners. “If you love the dance, love the people," Smith said. “You can't separate us."
Brian Schaefer writes on dance for The New York Times, among other publications.
Is This a Protest Dance?
In July, following fatal shootings in Minnesota, Louisiana and Texas, Ailey dancer Sean Aaron Carmon noticed the tension and despair among members of the Ailey company as they gathered in small groups before a performance of Rennie Harris' emotionally raw Exodus. Carmon sensed the need for an outlet, so he invited them to dance their feelings in a one-minute piece he choreographed to Beyoncé's “Freedom." He filmed and posted it on the company's Instagram account (which he runs). The post went viral, and attracted the attention of The New York Times, which dubbed it a “protest dance," a label that Carmon takes issue with.
“I never said it was a protest dance," he says. His intention was simply to offer a space for release. “If you need to let it out, if you need to dance, if you need to not talk—just do what we do best, get it all out in the studio and then take your fresh self to the stage. Let's do it now," he recalls telling the dancers. In other words, the video, while it may look like a statement from the outside, was intended as a moment of collective processing.
Carmon gave the Ailey dancers choreography that he'd taught at various studios in Houston, Texas, including to some young, white, affluent students in the suburbs. Dance became a conduit to discussing the country's racial history and contemporary reality with them, and their parents, who were invited into the room. “I'm telling them, 'You have a teacher who dances for a company that was founded because of things like this. Because I couldn't have had a place to dance before 1958…You have to understand that things haven't changed as much as you think they have, as much as you're being led to believe they have.' "
Carmon was encouraged by the positive response to the video, and hopes to further develop the work. He says of the racial issues involved, “I'm not done with it, America's not done with it, I don't think the world is done with it. And I know that the Ailey dancers aren't done with it, either." —BS
For a timeline of dance works that address racial injustice, get the December issue of Dance Magazine.
In sequined dresses and tennis shoes, Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass march up to the statue of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, and start doing jumping jacks to the sounds of '70s music. From there, they lead a small cohort through a French Renaissance gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then to an Italian Renaissance gallery for stretching, then to the American wing for squats. They are testing out possibilities for a new concept: The Museum Workout, which the Met Museum will present in its 2016–17 season. It's not a dance, per se, but it's movement as a means to connection. And in the past few years, that philosophy has taken this adventurous pair to some pretty unexpected places.
One such place was a live episode of the popular radio program This American Life. As a follow-up, Ira Glass, the program's famous host, offered to moderate post-show talks at performances of Monica Bill Barnes & Company. Barnes countered with a proposal to integrate him into a show instead. The result was Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host, a delightfully poignant evening of storytelling and dance that wasn't meant to last more than a few performances. But nearly three years later, the trio is still touring it across the country with dates booked through this summer. “It's been so much more than we ever thought it would be," Barnes says.
Most small dance companies are lucky for the occasional chance to show their work to intimate audiences out of town. But the popularity of Three Acts has exposed tens of thousands of viewers to Barnes' singular blend of vaudeville, variety show, slapstick and showmanship. “A large part of my mission is to bring in audiences who aren't as familiar with dance," she says, which is one reason the collaboration with Glass was such a good fit. From the beginning, Barnes has been intentional about the impact she wants to make, and tenacious about creating a business model that allows dance to be not just a lifestyle but a living.
After completing her MFA at New York University in 1997, Barnes started a “company" (her air quotes), which basically meant “making solos for anyone who would watch." Her goal was to sustain herself financially entirely through dance, which she managed to do after only two years, with “a combo of the most ridiculous work you could imagine." If she got a teaching gig in Virginia, she'd call schools in a 300-mile radius to offer master classes and performances. If a school three hours away accepted, she'd spend her entire fee on gas to get there. In other words, she hustled.
She danced for other artists, like Guta Hedewig and Allyson Green, and started making duets and quartets. For a long time, she got asked “Is the company ever going to get bigger?" as if an increase in size would indicate an increase in seriousness. “It's intentionally smaller," she says, noting that she has always believed in paying her dancers fairly. “Partially for finances but also because I think you identify more. In a smaller group you can see individuals better."
In recent years, the individual that cannot be missed is Bass, who started working with Barnes in 2003 and is now her associate artistic director. “We discovered that our physicality and instinct and impulses are so similar," Bass says. They share an uncanny sense of charmingly awkward swagger. Onstage, they portray characters—overeager hosts, cocky high-rollers or corporate businessmen out for a good time, as in their most recent show, Happy Hour, a weekly after-work performance complete with cocktails, karaoke and a raffle. It's fun, and funny. Humor, perhaps more than anything else, is Barnes' signature. But dance audiences aren't generally primed to laugh, so to let them know it's okay, Barnes and Bass borrow a trick from comedians like Louis C.K. and Bill Burr.
“Comedians tend to present themselves with a lot of self-deprecation," Barnes says. If they do it well and with confidence, it's a joy to laugh at them. “You can't laugh at somebody that you're worried about," she adds, explaining, “We give the audience permission to laugh at us because beneath it all, they know that we're fine." As in comedy, the humor is the real-time feedback that lets you know you've hooked an audience: When you hear the laughter, Barnes says, “you know they understood."
Audience enjoyment is the raison d'être of the company. “For me the purpose of making a show is to connect with an audience," says Barnes. “And if the show fails to connect…that's our fault." Unlike some choreographers for whom steps are sacred, with Barnes, the moves come second. “She privileges the experience over everything," observes Robert Saenz de Viteri, who joined the company to help manage Three Acts and stayed on in a role created for him as creative producing director. “The choreography is just material."
Yet that connection takes different shapes when the duo performs Three Acts one night in a 3,000-seat hall and Happy Hour a few days later for a small audience in a room that fits 70. The dramatic shift is by design. “There is a really strategic eye on not being redundant," says Barnes. The obvious choice after Three Acts, given its reception and box office receipts, would have been to capitalize on the concept and launch version 2.0. Happy Hour, in many ways, is counterintuitive. But it has led to exciting new partnerships, such as with the Ace Hotel, which presented Three Acts in Los Angeles in the fall and is now discussing bringing Happy Hour to some of its properties.
“Partnering with the Ace is really asking us to think about the show in a different way," says Barnes. They've brainstormed with hotel executives about venues, audiences and even ticket prices. She loves working with a business because it looks at dance differently—just as Barnes has done from the beginning.
Part of her longevity comes from operating like a business herself (though the company is a nonprofit). Barnes, Bass and Saenz de Viteri all draw full-time salaries; Kelly Hanson, their costume and set designer, and Jane Cox, their lighting designer, are part-time contractors, and all of them receive annual raises. With the help of Three Acts, the company now has a savings account, which “just lets you sleep better at night," says Barnes.
But this financial security only comes from being unafraid to take big risks, and by being patient enough to give quirky ideas generous gestation periods. The impending museum workout, two years in the making, is another such gamble, but one that has already earned the enthusiasm of curators. “The museum hasn't done anything like this before," says Juliana Dweck, of the Princeton University Art Museum, where much of the piece was developed. “To Anna and Monica, everything is an experiment. They're working outside any boxes."
Joining forces with radio hosts, hotel chains and museums isn't so different from cold-calling a university 300 miles away—it comes from the same “anything goes" and “make it work" attitude. Nearly two decades later, Monica Bill Barnes is still hustling, just on a much larger scale.
