Over in Colorado: Southland by Katherine Dunham, Reconstructed by the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. Check out a review here.
September 14-16 in Denver, one of Denver’s oldest and most respected dance companies took on an amazing project; they reconstructed, for the first time ever, Southland by Katherine Dunham. Dunham is revered in the field as one of the first major dance anthropologists. Not only that, she was a woman of color, and trail blazed with her research, writing and productions. Southland had never been seen in the US until this production. It premiered in Chile in 1951, and was banned by the US Embassy due to it’s graphic depiction of a lynching, and content about slavery. The Cleo Parker Robinson dance company received a large NEA grant to reconstruct the piece. Kinda neat for me that it’s first showing ever happened near where I am living, and that I got to see it!
Upcoming in New York: The New York Jazz Choreography Project
October 19-20 in New York, Jazz Choreography Enterprises will present another one of they bi-annual choreographer’s shows. This show will feature the work of Bob Boross, Crystal Chapman, Mike Esperanza, Cara Goodwin, Joyce King, Alison L. Krauss, Luigi, Cat Manturuk, roberta mathes, Merete Muenter, Kirsten Schwartz, Kellie Schweon and Sidney Erik Wright. More about the show can be found here.
Keep your eyes peeled, folks. There seems to be jazz-dance-happenings everywhere!
Erinn Liebhard: Dance Artist 