Friday Night was the opening night for the Dancing While Black Series at BAAD, curated by Paloma McGregor featuring performances by Aida Tamar Whitaker and Ase Dance Theater, Ebony Noelle Golden and Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, and Rashida Bumbray and Dance Diaspora Collective.
 |
| Rashida Bombray and Dance Diaspora Collective |
The performances took place after a lively panel discussion I did not witness, featuring distingushed guests Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Greg Tate, moderated by Shani Jamila.
As a personal friend to many of the dancers in Ase Dance Theater, and an associate artist with Body Ecology, a project of Ebony Golden's Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, my newest encounter was the work of Rashida Bombray who I wish to discuss today.
The final performance of the evening, RUN MARY RUN, was performed by Rashia Bumbray and Dance Diaspora Collective Members Kristal Boyd, Cecily Bumbray, Francisca "Kika" Chaidez-Gutierrez, Latasha N. Nevada Diggs, Joseph Klein, Maiesha McQueen and Serena Muthi Reed. With Matthew Hill on percussion and Daniel Spearman on Piano.
Rashida's work caught me by surprise with its clarity of intention and expert execution. In her program notes, she describes herself as both a curator and choreographer, who has performed the ring shout for about a decade. For the newest installment RUN MARY RUN, she writes "she considers the harmonic ideas and tonal vocabulary of the McIntosh Country Shouters--master ring shout artists-- as a point of departure. Creating an active ritual for the ceremony of the ring shout, the performers go on a ride through the cosmologies of the Low Country, Geechie Sea Islands, Tennessee Blues, P Funk, and Hip Hop-- relating the shout to the history of Black music."
As an African American woman with ancestral roots in the Sea Islands, an a taurean moon in the 12th house, I am prone to absorbing these energetic pathways with ancestral ties through music and dance. RUN MARY RUN spoke to a deep calling within, honoring the ancestral stories that reside within me. The ringshout being a spiritual dance developed during slavery, speaks to a resilience and grace of the black feminine spirit illustrated through the performers on Dance Diaspora Collective.
No comments:
Post a Comment