National Museum of Dance

11/23/2021

Tour Tuesday 65

Dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones's works have been a vehicle for relevant commentary on social/political issues of the day for over 4 decades. In previous Tour Tuesday #46 I refer to several of his most known works: D Man in the Water; Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Promised Land, and Still/Here. Today I will focus on a new work, Deep Blue Sea, a Park Avenue Armory commission originally set to premiere in April 2020. Jones created the work while simultaneously looking back at a historic literary novel, a historic and revered speech that still resonates today, and a historic 2014 shooting that spurred the Black Lives Matter movement for social change in America.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/648757910

Dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones's works have been a vehicle for relevant commentary on social/political issues of the day for over 4 decades. In previous…

11/16/2021

Tour Tuesday 64

Part 10 of Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change, focuses on an organization rather than a choreographer, its creation and mission during the Civil Rights Movement in America and its ground-breaking re-creation of one of the most famous ballets of the Romantic period in order to bring a relatable version to people of color. Dance Theatre of Harlem first full-length ballet was its 1984 Creole Giselle. In this adaptation of the classic 1841 Giselle, DTH's founding director Arthur Mitchell dispelled the myth that Black artists weren't suitable to dance classical ballet.

Undead Project: Creole Giselle Act 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ycueZKuVJo

Undead Project: Creole Giselle Act 2 Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9zguehiTtE&t=2s

Undead Project: Creole Giselle Act 2 Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOyvTdp1uiM

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/646491174

Part 10 of Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change, focuses on an organization rather than a choreographer, its creation and mission during the Civil Rights Movement…

11/09/2021

Tour Tuesday 63

Anna Halprin was an American choreographer and dancer. She helped redefine dance in postwar America and pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance. She founded San Francisco Dancer's Workshop in 1959 which fostered a more explorative form of dance that gave people the liberty to move freely with emotion and a sense of community without physical constraints. Her choreographic response to the Watts Riots in Los Angeles led to her formation of the first multi-racial dance company in America.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/643659355

Anna Halprin was an American choreographer and dancer. She helped redefine dance in postwar America and pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance.…

11/02/2021

Tour Tuesday 62

Eleo Pomare was a Colombian-American modern dance choreographer known for his politically charged works depicting the black experience. Pomare is often considered "the angry black man of modern dance", although he does not consider himself angry or bitter, but that he is rather "telling it like it is". His work Blues for the Jungle is a raw depiction of drug addiction, life in prison, and the sights and sounds from a Harlem tenement window - real-life scenarios during the late 1960's.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/641279170

Eleo Pomare was a Colombian-American modern dance choreographer known for his politically charged works depicting the black experience. Pomare is often considered…

10/26/2021

Tour Tuesday 61

A leader of the New Dance Group and a member of the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio, Sophie Maslow was among the generation of dancers involved in the 1930's labor movement. Maslow saw her work as inspired by a personal heritage rather than by political ideology. In 1942, she developed her first masterpiece FOLKSAY, a folk medley interspersed with Woody Guthrie ballads. After World War I, she choreographed a piece called The Village I Knew (1950) based on Sholem Aleichem's writings on Russian-Jewish village life. Above all, Maslow wanted her dances to be of the common people.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/638807162

A leader of the New Dance Group and a member of the Dudley-Maslow-Bales Trio, Sophie Maslow was among the generation of dancers involved in the 1930's labor…

10/19/2021

Tour Tuesday 60

Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. His 1959 dramatic masterwork Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder reveals the frustration of oppression and aspirations for freedom of a chain gang toiling in the American South.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/635752586

Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s…

10/05/2021

Tour Tuesday 59

In Part 5 of “Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change”, Docent Coordinator Mary Anne Fantauzzi talks about Katherine Dunham’s most controversial work Southland. This work was highlighted in the December 2016 Dance Magazine article “Before : A Timeline”. Its storyline was considered anti-American and was not performed in the United States until almost 60 years after its 1951 premiere in Chile, six years after Dunham’s death.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/623046322

In Part 5 of “Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change”, Docent Coordinator Mary Anne Fantauzzi talks about Katherine Dunham’s most controversial…

10/02/2021

Congratulations to Katie and Dima on their intimate wedding this evening. Not everyone gets to exchange vows on the stage at S**C! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

09/29/2021

Tour Tuesday 58

Pearl Primus, the first African American student at New Dance Group, was a dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and teacher whose performance work drew on the African American experience and on her research in Africa and the Caribbean. Her dramatic work Strange Fruit, was named by Dance Magazine as one of dance history's milestones that brought injustices against African Americans to the stage.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/616300194

Pearl Primus, the first African American student at New Dance Group, was a dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and teacher whose performance work drew on the…

09/22/2021

Tour Tuesday 57

Charles Weidman began his career as a dancer in the Denishawn Company but left the company in 1927 with fellow dancer Doris Humphrey to form the Humphrey-Weidman Company. They investigated a new American modern dance aesthetic which rejected foreign, imaginary themes of pre-existing modern dance and the rigidity, gravity-defying and fairytale imagery of ballet. His choreography investigated contemporary themes of American life including those reflective of the tumultuous Depression era of the 1930’s. His 1936 haunting work Lynchtown was based on a childhood memory of a lynching in Omaha, Nebraska that was called a “milestone that brought injustices against African Americans to the stage”.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/610028798

Charles Weidman began his career as a dancer in the Denishawn Company but left the company in 1927 with fellow dancer Doris Humphrey to form the Humphrey-Weidman…

09/14/2021

Tour Tuesday 56

Helen Tamiris, whose original name was Helen Becker, was born into a poor but cultured Orthodox Jewish family on the Lower East Side of New York City. She was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher whose concert career lasted from 1927 to 1944. During this time, she created works for herself and her contemporaries, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and the choreographers of the New Dance League and New Dance Group. She was one of the first to use jazz music, African American spirituals, and social-protest themes in her work.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/604220963

Helen Tamiris, whose original name was Helen Becker, was born into a poor but cultured Orthodox Jewish family on the Lower East Side of New York City. She was…

09/07/2021

Tour Tuesday 55

Today, we will begin a new series called "Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change". Due to the pandemic's universal shutdown of the performing arts and the need for equity inclusion and social justice, choreographers are addressing racism, violence, religious persecution, and human isolation. But these topics have been prominent throughout dance history. This series will revisit the creators of dance for social change beginning with the 1930's.

Please visit our website to view all of our Tour Tuesday installments at https://www.nationalmuseumofdance.org/tour-tuesday

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https://vimeo.com/599030343

Today, we will begin a new series called "Dancing Rebels: Movement for Social Change". Due to the pandemic's universal shutdown of the performing…