• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

2019-2020 WORLDCLASS® COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE Tuesday-Wednesday, April 21-22, 2020 10:30-11:30 am Harrison Opera House, Norfolk What’s Inside: VAF Education Sponsors 2 Shall We Dance? 9 Collage Dance Collective 3 Poetry in Motion 10 Diversity in Dance 4 Ballet Basics 11 Battling Discrimination with Ballet 5 Ballet Glossary 12 Timeline of the Civil Rights Era 6 Resources 13 Cakewalk to Moonwalk 7-8 vafest.org VAF EDUCATION SPONSORS 2 THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR DONORS AND THESE SPONSORS OF VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS CORPORATE SPONSORS FOUNDATIONS D. Baker Ames Charitable Foundation, East Beach Institute, Lean S. Wohl Musical Arts Fund of the Hampton Clark Nexsen, Enterprise Holdings Foundation, Roads Community Foundation, ODU Hixon Community Nordstrom, USAA, Wells Fargo Engagement Fund, Ruth Brown Memorial Fund GOVERNMENT SUPPORT The following cities and/or their Arts and Humanities Commissions: Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg. VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVAL // COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE 3 Reminding the world that ballet comes in all colors, the acclaimed Collage Dance Collective seeks to connect the African American community to ballet, telling its stories in dance. The company’s photo of five female dancers of color that went viral on social media encapsulated one of Collage’s most powerful messages: classical dance as an art form knows no boundaries, and artists of color have no limits. Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Collage Dance Collective attracts world-class dancers to its mission, and focuses on community outreach and education, estimating that about half its audience has never seen ballet before. Collage believes that participation in the arts enriches communities; the company works to increase access to outstanding ballet training, increase diversity on professional ballet stages, and increase participation by people of color at ballet and other fine arts events. Collage Dance Collective SOURCE: Adapted from www.collagedance.org. VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVAL // COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE DIVERSITY IN DANCE: COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE 4 “I started dancing [ballet] very young, at a planned move in the fall to an enormous new five- the age of seven,” recalls Kevin Thomas, studio facility, which has the potential to double the cofounder and artistic director of dance school’s enrollment, Collage is poised to become Collage Dance Collective. “By the time I the largest African American–owned ballet school in the was eight or nine, I realized that I wasn’t South and one of the largest in the country. the right color. I kind of felt like a part of my culture was being erased—I had to Collage’s current (and future) facility is located in a be somebody else to be this dancer.” neighborhood of Memphis with a large African American and immigrant population. And that’s not by accident. But classical ballet filled Thomas’s heart, so he followed Making ballet and the performing arts accessible to his passion, eventually becoming a principal dancer everyone is a key part of the Collage mission: “The for Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) in New York City, a Conservatory welcomes students of all backgrounds and trailblazing multicultural professional ballet company races and is proactive in its efforts to engage students of devoted to providing opportunities for dancers of color. color in an effort to address the racial inequity in classical “It’s only when I started dancing for Dance Theatre of ballet.” Harlem [that] I saw dancers who looked like me, and I saw the beauty of blackness onstage that was classically As cofounder Harper says, “We don’t want to forget trained,” Thomas says. why we do this and who this is for...We’ve been actively working to engage people who felt marginalized or [felt] His DTH experience inspired Thomas to launch his that [ballet]’s elitist or stuffy or not for them.” It’s not own ballet company and school in 2004, what is now surprising, then, that Collage Dance Collective dancers known as Collage. For centuries, classical ballet, with its are an exceptionally diverse group, hailing from Brazil, European roots, was not welcoming to dancers of diverse the Dominican Republic, and French Guiana, as well racial and cultural backgrounds. Thomas wanted to help as Florida, Missouri, and Connecticut. Together, they change that, to build on the philosophy of DTH and perform a repertoire that mixes contemporary, modern, other forward-thinking dance companies that ballet is for African, and more styles of dance, all while remaining everybody. “This was why Collage became very important deeply rooted in classical ballet technique. to me,” Thomas says, “why it was important to create a vehicle for dancers of color.” In the visual arts, a “collage” is a single work made from a variety of materials—different colors, textures, and With cofounder and executive director Marcellus Harper, shapes. In the ballet world, with its collage of repertoire Thomas trained dancers and produced performances and its collage of dancers, Collage Dance Collective’s in New York City. But by 2007, the two felt that NYC, name sums up exactly what the troupe is all about. considered the dance capital of the world, just didn’t have enough room for their fledgling dance organization. They decided to head south and give Memphis, Tennessee a Activity: Self-Portrait Collage try. Grades 3-12 Starting with a single student in a church, then moving Research the visual art form of collage; check out the to a high school, the Collage dance school grew and work of master collage artists like Braque, Picasso, grew, eventually filling up its own studios with young Schwitters, and Rauschenberg. Now you try it: create dancers-in-training and an entire company of professional a self-portrait collage showing the different aspects— dancers. Today, Collage Ballet Conservatory teaches interests, passions, ideas, roles—that make up you! more than two hundred students between the ages of Use a variety of materials to craft your masterpiece. two and eighteen, and the Collage Dance Collective When you’re done, share your self-portrait with your touring company has performed around the world. With classmates so they can learn more about you! SOURCE: “Collage Dance Collective,” Choose901, https://vimeo.com/244114510; “Collage Dance Collective Poised to Become Largest Black-Owned Dance School in the South,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 21, 2019; www. collagedance.org. VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVAL // COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE BATTLING DISCRIMINATION WITH BALLET 5 COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE, DANCE Just as the civil rights movement sought to end THEATRE OF HARLEM, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS segregation and discrimination, Mitchell had to fight against prejudice and stereotypes to become a dancer MOVEMENT with New York City Ballet and to launch a black ballet Sixteen years ago, when Kevin Thomas was a principal company and school. dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem and decided to start his own ballet company, his startup troupe was known “There was a perception that black people could not casually as Friends of Dance Theatre of Harlem. Today, do classical ballet, that the body was not fit for it,” he Thomas’s company is called Collage Dance Collective, remembered. “When I got to New York City Ballet, but it still keeps close ties with DTH. Many of Collage’s [people] could say, ‘Oh, you’re the exception.’ No, I had pros are former Dance Theatre of Harlem dancers and the opportunity.” Due to the support of New York City students, and to this day they often perform with Dance Ballet director Lincoln Kirstein and choreographer George Theatre of Harlem, including at DTH’s appearance at last Balanchine, who believed in Mitchell’s abilities, the color year’s Virginia Arts Festival. of his skin was irrelevant. Collage is also linked to DTH through the memory and Still, the stereotype lingered that ballet couldn’t be legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. performed by black dancers. “Rather than argue,” Thomas’s ballet Rise is set to King’s historic “I’ve Been Mitchell explained, “the best thing to do was provide the to the Mountaintop” speech. And Collage’s short film opportunity—make a company and school so that people Rebirth pays homage to Dr. King; it was photographed at could see that given the opportunity, anyone can excel.” Memphis’s Clayborn Temple, where King led one of his final marches against injustice, and also incorporates lines Years later, Kevin Thomas’s own experience dancing in from the uplifting “Mountaintop” speech. Mitchell’s company would move him to bring those very same ideas to life in Memphis, where he continues the It was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, mission of nourishing and encouraging the talents of in fact, that moved dancer Arthur Mitchell to cofound dancers of color. Dance Theatre of Harlem, the world’s first black classical ballet company. “That’s the reason Collage Dance Collective “With [Dr. King’s] assassination…I felt it was very important exists,” Thomas explains. that I come back to my community and do what I do well, “I was so inspired which is teach dance,” the late Arthur Mitchell recalled while dancing at Dance several years ago. After studying on full scholarship Theatre of Harlem, I felt at the School of American Ballet, in 1955 Mitchell had that we needed more of been invited to join the acclaimed New York City Ballet, this. [I] ended up here in becoming the first male African American member of Memphis, and I wanted a major ballet company. He would dance for New York to create the same thing City Ballet for fifteen years, rising to the rank of premier because I knew that it danseur, or the company’s lead male dancer.

Load more

  15

Copy Link