For Release: June 4 , 2007
Six historic works by African-American choreographers, filmed by the American Dance Festival to preserve and celebrate the black tradition in modern dance, are featured in Great Performances " Dance in America: Dancing in the Light . " V iewed in chronological order, they dramatically underscore, as host Taye Diggs puts it, "the important role black choreographers have played in the development of American modern dance." "Dancing in the Light" airs Wednesday, June 20 at 9 /8 p.m. C T on KET1 .
G.D. Harris of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company performs "Ostrich " (1932). Created by choreographer Dafora, the groundbreaking solo work was one of the first modern dance compositions to fuse African movements with Western staging.
An artistic melding of vernacular and modern dance ideas, "Barrelhouse Blues" (1938), performed by the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, was created by anthropologist and choreographer Katherine Dunham for Broadway. A shocker in its day, the dance delighte d audiences and baffled critics .
Dawn Marie Watson of Philadanco offers a haunting i nterpretation of "Strange Fruit " (1943), Pearl Primus' classic example of "social protest" dance. Portraying a woman's reaction to a lynching, the piece is set to the words of Louis Allen's poem of the same title.
Talley Beatty created the solo "Mourner's Bench" (1947) as on e piece of his five-part Southern Landscape. Jerome Stigler of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company is the soloist grieving for a life lost through racial violence.
Donald McKayle 's "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder " (1959), re-created by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, focuses on the anguish and hopes of seven men in a chain gang.
Finally, "D-Man in the Waters - Section 1" (1989), performed by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance C ompany, shows that social commentary is a source of inspiration for many modern dance choreographers. Created in response to the AIDS crisis, the work was inspired by a dream Jones had in which he saw a huge body of water filled with friends.
Great Performances "Dance in America: Dancing in the Light" is a production of t he American Dance Festival in association with WNET/New York. More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.