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Black Burlesque (revisited), an international collaboration between two dance companies and an a cappella group, will make a stop on its national tour 8 p.m. today at the Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets cost $4 with Lafayette ID and $18 for the public. They may be purchased by calling the box office at 610-330-5009.
Members of Black Burlesque will hold a workshop on gumboot dancing noon today in the Marlo Room of Farnion College Center. Gumboot is a percussive dance style popular among male workers in Zimbabwe and South Africa that has influenced the “stepping” tradition now practiced at many colleges and high schools; it is especially popular with African-American men. This participatory workshop is open to all and no reservations are required.
In conjunction with the performance, an evening of food and song was held 6 p.m. yesterday in the Faculty Dining Room of Marquis Hall. The event was sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Development and the Greater Shiloh Baptist Church.
In Black Burlesque, acclaimed New York-based choreographer Reggie Wilson’s Fist and Heel Performance Groupjoins forces with Trinidad’s legendary Noble Douglas Dance Company and a cappella world music stars Black Umfolosi. Weaving a vibrant poetry of music, song, and dance, the international project unites African artists representing distinct cultural and aesthetic practices across three parts of the globe. Recapturing the essence of its historical roots, the work embraces a poignant vision of shared formal structures, casting a contemporary eye on ritual and tradition.
Featuring a cast of 13 performers, Black Burlesque finds it roots in the powerful renderings of song and dance that can be traced to the homelands of each collaborator. The work brings vivid fragments from spiritual practice, daily life, and culture to the stage in a dynamic layering of percussive movement and sound — an eclectic arrangement of singing, stomping, clapping and shouting. Charting rural to urban transitions and the continuity between religious and social dance and music forms, Black Burlesque (revisited) juxtaposes traditional dance, including the South African gumboot, and circle and line dances from the Southern United States and Caribbean, with contemporary dance and music styles. The work includes visual design by Thabiso Phokompe, lighting design by Tyler Micoleau and costume design by Adrienne McDonald.
Wilson, who founded Fist and Heel Performance Group in 1989, draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave, and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he calls “post-African/Modern dances.” His work has been presented internationally at Linkfest and Festival Enkundleni, Zimbabwe; Queen’s Hall, Trinidad and Tobago; and at Festival Kaay Fecc in Senegal, as well as venues in New York, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and Washington, D.C.
Wilson has traveled to the Mississippi Delta to research secular and religious aspects of life there; to Trinidad and Tobago to research the Spiritual Baptists and Shangoists; and to Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal to work with dance and performance groups as well as various religious communities.
He is a graduate of New York University/Tisch School of the Arts and has lectured, taught, and conducted extended workshops for community projects throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, National Performance Network’s Creation Fund, Jerome Foundation, Altria Corporate Services, The National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund, Arts International, The Harkness Foundation, and the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation. Wilson was a recipient of the Minnesota Dance Alliance’s McKnight National Fellowship in 2000-2001, a 2002 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2002 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for The Tie-Tongued Goat and The Lightning Bug Who Tried to Put Her Foot Down!
Noble Douglas founded the 12-member Noble Douglas Dance Company in 1985 and has served as its artistic director and administrator ever since. A native and resident of Port of Spain, Trinidad, she received her training at the London School of Dance and Drama, and in New York City at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Among the works for her company, Douglas has choreographed Fugal (1995), When Dancers Dance (1991), Passage (1987) and Hysterics (1986). Her company work, Rum and Salvation (1998), was created in collaboration with Reggie Wilson and performed by their two groups. She has also choreographed and performed in several works with the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.
Since 1975, Douglas has served as principal and artistic director of Lilliput Theatre, a theater company for young persons, which she founded with dramatist Tony Hall. She also choreographs for Marionettes Chorale, the leading choir of Trinidad, and for the annual carnival band of Callalloo Company, initiated by carnival and stage designer Peter Minshall. She has taught dance extensively throughout Trinidad and Tobago.
Black Umfolosi founder Thomeki Dube is a seasoned dancer, musician, trainer, and music composer. Born in a mountainous Zimbabwe village, his educational career started in Botswana and Zambia, where he cultivated his talents in music and dance by creating contemporary dance pieces, which were a fusion of Zimbabwean and Zambian dances. During his secondary education he teamed up with schoolmates to form Black Umfolosi Performing Arts Project.
Dube has facilitated residency and cultural exchange programs, promoted up and coming musicians, and coordinated partnerships among schools in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He has also facilitated and inspired the formation of two powerful grassroots organizations in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: Masibemunye Artist Association, which has a membership of 800, and Zimbabwe Traditional Dancers Association, which has about 350 members.
Dube is a holder of certificates in Arts Management and Training of Trainers. He is also the coordinator of the Enkundleni Community Arts Centre in Bulawayo. He has composed many gospel songs that have achieved popularity in Zimbabwe.
The presentation of Black Burlesque (revisited) at Lafayetteis supported by an ArtsConnect grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. The performance residency is funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Altria Corporate Services Inc.
The nationally recognized Performance Series attracts more than 10,000 people each season. It has been cited for performing excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, Chamber Music America, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Pennsylvania Arts and Humanities Councils, and Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
The 2003-04 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by the F.M. Kirby Foundation; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.