It ranks as one of the most astonishing stage spectacles ever: Choreographer-dancer Bill T. Jones, at the end of an exhaustive evening of dance and sociological debate, standing on the stage of Chicago’s Civic Theatre with 40 other dancers, all of them butt naked.
Many of us had never seen anything like it. Here was dance movement, sure, as well as graceful choreography and sublime artistry. But this also had sections that might have come right out of “The McLaughlin Group.”
Jones’ landmark work, “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land,” which played here in 1992, was a watershed: He abandoned tradition and let it all hang out. His work excoriated the oppression of blacks, women and gays and the scourges of slavery last century and AIDS in this one. Old forms and conventions melted in the heat of his ideas.
Jones’ “Uncle Tom” was certainly not the first work by a black choreographer to treat social issues angrily and bluntly. But he woke a lot of us up to a flourishing movement that continues to blossom and expand today. What we were seeing was nothing less than the sparks of a revolution.
In the six years since, black choreographers have continued to push boundaries, break rules and turn on audiences in the U.S. in a way that is redefining the art forever.
If there is any action at all in this often neglected art form, look to African-Americans for it. The hottest choreographers on Broadway are Savion “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk” Glover and Garth “The Lion King” Fagan. There’s a feverish revival in tap helping to restore the spotlight on the long tradition of black American hoofers and welcome such young newcomers as Chicago’s own two-man tap-dance company, “Steppin’ Out.”
Meanwhile, there is a growing maturity to the African folk movement, too–witness our own Muntu Theatre and that annual sellout, DanceAfrica. Fresh, new voices still, such as Philadelphia-based Rennie Harris, are bringing an evolved, rarified form of breakdancing and hip-hop to the concert hall. Other voices more in keeping with Jones’ post-modern tradition continue to push traditional concert dance–David Roussneve, for instance, delivering such highly theatrical, autobiographical and socially cutting works as “Urban Scenes/Creole Dreams,” which dealt with his Creole grandmother and his own homosexuality.
One of the biggest dance events of the New York season was a new work by Ralph Lemon, and one of Chicago’s most reliable contemporary dancemakers year after year is Randy Duncan, who provides work for the Joffrey Ballet and others and who annually ends the popular Dance for Life benefit with an original, uplifting finale.
And through it all, under the remarkable skill and perseverance of Judith Jamison, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is proving as durable and strong as any company in the U.S. (She took the group for an emotional, first-time-ever tour of South Africa only last summer, for instance.) When the company comes here and performs Ailey’s spiritual masterpiece, “Revelations” (“We don’t dare not perform it,” Jamison likes to say), it will stand as one of the oldest, most reliable works of 20th Century choreography–virtually in repertory every year since its 1960 creation.
And, to whatever extent black dance in America is bad (as in good) and beautiful, Chicago is about to enjoy an unusual opportunity to judge first-hand. Work by all of the choreographers or troupes mentioned above, except for Lemon, will be on view in a rich schedule of performances in various programs this spring. In addition, Steppenwolf Theatre’s Traffic series, on March 30, is teaming hot San Francisco choreographer-dancer Robert Henry Johnson with septuagenarian sax great Von Freeman.
Explaining the growth
It says something that so many black choreographers are on our calendar in the next six months by coincidence, unlinked to any kind of “black choreographers” showcase.
Why African-American dance now? Partly, it fills a vacuum at a time when ballet and modern dance seem on hold, plagued by death (Martha Graham and George Balanchine) and aging (Mikhail Baryshnikov) and an inexplicable failure to generate younger replacements. Then, too, black choreographers, though they’ve been around for years, seem to be emerging amidst a broader renaissance among African-American artists, a movement linking August Wilson in drama, Toni Morrison in fiction and rapsters in pop music. As with any outsiders who chip and chisel their way into a mainstream, these artists have learned to master form while generating fresh ideas.
Finally, presenters, hungry for innovation and new audiences, are on board, too, from large institutions such as the Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre to more avant-garde sponsors like Performing Arts Chicago or the Dance Center of Columbia College.
“This is something we’ve been aware of for some time,” says Julie Simpson, head of the Dance Center of Columbia College, which hosted a series showcasing black choreographers in 1990. “We want to develop as diverse an audience for ourselves as we can.”
To the choreographers themselves, this is nothing new. Black dancemakers have always expressed their histories, anguish and outrage in their work–consider Katherine Dunham, a onetime anthropologist who mixed social activism with dance as long ago as the ’30s. A lot of these others, including Jamison, Fagan, Jones and Rousseve, have been at work for decades as well.
But the ’90s seems to represent a new plateau in terms of institutional acceptance and proliferation, with too many small, up-and-coming offshoots in Chicago alone to list. And politics is only part of the cornucopia anyway. This is an explosion in dance that’s simultaneously political and non-political, classical and hip-hop, serious art and joyful, rhythmic tap.
“I’m proud of the variety, but it has always existed, really,” says Fagan, who, after 27 years as a choreographer, made his Broadway debut with “Lion King” only this season. “We’ve just never had the exposure. But there have always been a lot of people like myself who’ve toughed it out and, when ignored by the press, kept doing our concerts. Sometimes the press just didn’t get it because they were schooled in ballet. They didn’t have a knowledge of African dance.”
The result has been a healthy expansion of what is considered serious dance. “We’re identified with jazz dance, but we focus on jazz, modern and ballet as well as African dance thrown in,” says Vanessa Truvillion, associate artistic director of the 25-year-old Joel Hall Dancers here. “It does seem that the dance community is open to a greater diversity these days in terms of styles and cultural aspects.”
“It’s not new to us–Alvin was supporting black artists 40 years ago, including some (such as Jones) who are big today,” says Jamison, noting Ailey’s support for choreographers such as the late Ulysses Dove and Talley Beatty. “But I think it’s wonderful people are discovering their own voices and agendas today. They are discovering their blackness, and when they do, they can say, `I understand my roots and that enables me to understand who you are too.’ “
That leap from the particular to the universal is a paradoxical element of the movement. Jones, for one, isn’t sure he wants to be labeled.
“It’s a convenient catchall, I suppose, but to categorize me as an African-American choreographer after 20 years of work is not something I’m comfortable with,” says Jones. “My partner until his death, Arnie Zane, wasn’t black, and I’ve tried to approach my art in a way that escapes categories.” For now he has shifted from the pioneering, socially in-your-face work such as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the 1994 “Still/Here,” which included real-life narratives by non-dancers (and Jones) suffering AIDS and other terminal illnesses.
Jones’ more recent “We Set Out Early . . . Visibility Was Poor,” which will come here when his troupe plays April 8 and 9 at Arie Crown Theatre, is more formal, by his own description, and a journey through the century inspired by its differing composers: Stravinsky, John Cage and Latvia’s Peteris Vasks.
“I’m not very much on movements, though I was a member of the counterculture as a teenager,” Jones says. “Now, I think the experience of being alive is much more complicated. The whole discourse around identity and politics is important, and I’ve done my part. I speak as a black man, as a gay man, but also as an artist and as Bill T. Jones.”
Wide mix of influences
The great breadth and depth of African-American dance these days underscores Jones’ point. Contemporary black choreographers seem to bask at times in a double advantage: They bring in gripping socio-political content, beginning with slavery, to an otherwise abstract or Eurocentric subject matter. But they can express themselves to music–part of a choreographer’s calling, after all–that ranges in style from Southern spiritual, rap and African drumbeats to tried-and-true classical music and poetry. Jones and Rousseve, among the more astute social commentators around, are both offering works set to classical music–the juxtaposition is part of the thrill.
The Ailey company, playing here March 25-29 at the Auditorium Theatre, will feature two classic works by choreographer George Faison that demonstrate this versatility: his 1971 “Slaves,” set on a slave ship decades before the “Amistad” fad, to African music, and “Suite Otis,” to the songs of Otis Redding. Talley Beatty’s fierce, urban paean, “The Stack-Up,” is set to ’70s disco.
Meanwhile, Fagan’s Caribbean influences, like the African roots of our own 25-year-old Muntu Dance Theatre, radiate with festivity, celebration, frolic, color and rhythms of another world altogether. Muntu, which specializes in dance from Africa and the New World, is this year reviving a 1970s work by Arthur Hall called “Fat Tuesday and All That Jazz.”
“I think what’s happening right now is full of expression,” says Amaniyea Payne, Muntu’s artistic director and lead choreographer. “It’s wonderful that the time has come when we find the door open, that so many more eyes are watching. `Fat Tuesday’ touches on roots from Africa, Haiti and the work of Dunham,” the pioneering, Chicago-born African-American choreographer. “Although we more often deal with Africa, this work helps the dancers focus on our American history, and that’s an important link in the story too.”
Contrast that with Fagan’s troupe, whose works might be called more traditional modern dance repainted in Caribbean colors, performing April 11 and 12 at the Auditorium. Or Rousseve, whose REALITY, which is performing through Feb. 21 at the Dance Center, offering bits from a work-in-progress called “Love Songs,” an exploration of love among gay couples, urban crack couples and slaves, among others.
“Whether race or gender based, I was interested in love between people who are different, who were not allowed to love one another,” he says.
Philadelphian Harris comes from yet another world from these others: street dance. He learned tap, breakdancing and hip-hop growing up in his neighborhood.
“I started off when I was 8, and I never thought of it as a career so much as something I needed to learn, something you just did,” he says. “I was 15 when I did my first professional gig, a fashion show, and got paid. I would have done it for free. Earlier, I was a stepper, Philly’s word for tapper. We’d dress in tuxedos and spats and derbies and challenge other groups across the city, at school dances and such. Nobody paid us any mind.”
At 19, he toured with Run DMC. But he also performed in small theaters, and in 1990 a not-for-profit group gave him a $1,500 commission. That commission launched his new group, PureMovement, which has since played the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (It plays here Feb. 26-March 1 at the MCA.)
“This other side, the concert realm, is all knew to me. I’ve seen Ralph Lemon’s work, but I’ve never seen Bill T. Jones. I’m the new kid on the block. I do think hip-hop is the thing that can represent this time and the harsh reality of what’s going on.”
While his moves are out of the street, his messages boast the social chutzpah of a Jones or a Rousseve. One piece to be featured here is titled “Die Nigga,” an ironic exhortation, he says, urging African-Americans to stand up, be proud and live. It is danced not to music but to spoken poetry by one of the dancers, Clyde Evans Jr.
“The title tends to upset white audiences more than anyone,” Harris says. “People even walk out. They’re not ready. `It’s not about you,’ I want to tell them. `It’s about issues you just haven’t dealt with yet, and that bothers you.’ ” He is no Pollyanna about all this either: “I feel like I’m the only one here sometimes,” he says of his role in bringing new styles into the concert arena. “People say, `You inspire me. I want to express myself in dance too.’ Well, I’m waiting. I’m waiting.”
But signs are everywhere that the long wait is over. Glover’s phenomenal, awesome Broadway smash, “Noise,” co-written with and directed by George C. Wolfe, arrives in a road tour June 16-July 12 at the Shubert Theatre and takes viewers on a panoramic, blistering history of black dance (and its oppression) in America. But it also provides a foot-stomping celebration, concluding with this clarion call: “There will always be ‘da beat.”
That exploration of heritage and hope makes these up-to-the-minute artists all the more fascinating. The Hall company’s Truvillion points out that the expanding universe of dance includes the likes of the Trinity Irish Dancers as a concert offering too. As Jamison notes, “You can talk of Alvin’s blackness, but you can tie him to Martha Graham too. That’s the beauty. We’re all of us standing on each other’s shoulders.”
CHICAGO’S DANCE CARD
Here is a selection of African American choreography playing in Chicago this spring:
David Rousseve/REALITY, through Feb. 21, the Dance Center of Columbia College, 4730 N. Sheridan Rd. 773-989-3310.
Rennie Harris PureMovement, Thursday-March 1, the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. 312-397-4010.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, March 25-29, the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. 312-902-1500.
Robert Henry Johnson and saxophonist Von Freeman, March 30, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. 312-335-1650.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, April 8 and 9, Arie Crown Theater. 312-902-1500.
Garth Fagan Dance, April 11 and 12, Auditorium Theatre. 312-902-1500.
“Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk,” June 16-July 12, Shubert Theatre, 22 W. Monroe St. (Tickets go on sale March 13.) 312-902-1500.
