Dance company celebrates 30th year

The African American Dance Company will have its 30th annual concert this weekend. The dances in the show will tell the history of African Americans, starting from when they were brought over in the slave ships. The show will include Afro-Caribbean dances, jazz, ballet and tap among other dances from the African Diaspora. \n"No one, whether African American or not, can know what happened on those slave ships, but we can study it and represent it through dance" said Iris Rosa, director of the AADC and professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies. "The focus of the company is to illustrate and educate the experiences of people of African descent."\nThe African Diaspora refers to all people with a common African heritage, including common and similar ethnic names, music and cultures, said Charles Sikes, director of the African American Arts Institute. The AADC fuses many forms of dance, including modern dance, ballet, tap, jazz and ethnic African dances to illustrate the African Diaspora. They dance to several types of music, including jazz, Caribbean and percussive ethnic African music. \nThe company originally was a vision of the late Herman Hudson, founder of the Office of Afro-American Affairs and the Minority Achievers Program at IU Bloomington. Rosa recalled Hudson's passion concerning the African-American diaspora at IU.\n"He was a very visionary man," Rosa said. "The vision that Dr. Hudson had was really to give minority students, particularly African-American students, an opportunity to perform."\nHudson established the Soul Revue, the Choral Ensemble and the African American Dance Company as a part of IU's African American Arts Institute, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary next school year. All three branches are credit-earning elective courses as opposed to extra curricular activities. \nRosa said it is not uncommon for students to retake the course and be in the company for a total of six semesters. Rosa also said the branches being courses and not activities is part of why the AAAI at IU is unique among American higher institutions. The Institute is large enough to have three full-time directors, including Rosa, and as a result, the company frequently travels outside of Bloomington to give performances. In the past they have performed in cities like Orlando, Fla., Toronto and New York City. \nAccording to an IU Media Relations article, "IU's African American Dance Company to celebrate with its 30th concert," the company's first concert was in the spring of 1975 and attracted an audience of 200 people at the Creative Arts Auditorium. In the article Rosa said the AADC had to rely on its own members for concert preparation and support. \n"We had to do everything. We had to get a lighting designer, do the costumes and essentially prove to him (Hudson) that we could do this," she said. "We really had to work." \nAlong with a lack of help, the company also had challenges with the dance facilities. Just a few years ago, the practice and choreography facilities at the former African American Culture Center were very poor. Rosa said the company had challenges dancing in a basement of Ashton Center, the former location of the African American Culture Center. Shauna Steele, associate instructor and master's student studying in journalism, whose responsibilities include being the rehearsal coach, assistant choreographer, stage manager and administrative assistant, said the basement in Ashton could not fully accommodate the dancers' needs. \n"The ceilings were too low to practice lifts," she said. "It was common for the dancers to acquire painful injuries like shin splints and heel bruises." \nDuring this time, the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation allowed the company to use its dance studios with soft floors and plenty of space.\n"They were gracious to let us use their facilities for so many years," said Rosa.\nNow, the AADC is based comfortably out of the Near-Marshall Black Culture Center. This allows them to have thorough rehearsals for their shows, including this weekend's performances.\nThe show will be at 8 p.m. Friday in Willkie Auditorium and will consist of nine pieces choreographed by students in the AADC. The show at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater will include five short dances during the first act and a 35-minute suite in the second act. \n-- Contact staff writer Benjames Derrick at bderrick@indiana.edu.