The same struggles that assail black people can also ignite great work from black artists. Nina Simone’s beautifully defiant anthems of empowerment. Kendrick Lamar’s fiery screeds against all shackles. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ systematic deconstruction of racism and hypocrisy.
Struggle can imbue artists with a sense of mission, as it does for Los Angeles-based Lula Washington Dance Theatre.
Founder Lula Washington grew up in a housing project in Watts and was studying nursing at a community college when a teacher took her to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. It changed her life; she had never seen black classical dancers on stage before. She was told she was too old to begin dancing professionally, but she did it anyway, eventually opening a studio with dancer-choreographer Donald McKayle in 1980.
She’s incorporated influences from masters of modern dance including Ailey, Eleo Pomare, Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan, Gloria Newman and R’Wanda Lewis, taking up legacies laid down before her.
“Arthur Mitchell dismissed that myth that black girls could not do ballet,” Washington says. “Katherine Dunham, the mother of African-American dance, studied the cultures of the different counties she traveled to and incorporated that into her work.”
Washington insists her dancers be versed in many idioms, some arsenal of ballet, modern, African, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, Caribbean, Broadway, even tap.
“They need to prepare, to commit 24-7, be technically proficient in all dance styles,” she says. “You have to have tough skin to be in the arts if you’re a person of color. The water will get hot very fast.”
Hip-hop music powers two of the pieces the company is bringing to CSUMB. In “REIGN,” choreographer Rennie Harris takes hip-hop moves from the clubs and streets and adapts them to the concert stage. Tamica’s “Message for my Peeps” uses music from Jimi Hendrix, Meshell Ndegeocello, Nas, Damian Marley and Yo-Yo Ma.
“It’s about a young girl,” Tamica says, “watching the grown-ups try to deal with a lying and cheating government, banks failing, foreclosed homes, and how to stay sane through it all.”
“Communion,” choreographed by Donald Byrd to Mio Morales’ original music, portrays a rite of passage for young women as a matron prepares them for the next phase in their lives. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s an homage to Lula and her legacy.
LULA WASHINGTON DANCE THEATRE 8pm Sat at CSUMB’s World Theater, 5260 Sixth Avenue, Seaside. $29/general; $40/premium; discounts for students, seniors, military. 582-4580, www.csumb.edu/worldtheater
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