Slave era, struggle for freedom explored at dance performance this weekend

Academic-based dances sandwiched student collaborations at the African American Dance Company spring concert, "Moving the Movement: Dancing Liberation," Saturday evening at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.\nInterim Director Deadra Nelson-Mason said she based the first and last pieces of the performance on research conducted for her thesis in African diaspora studies and dance at New York University.\n"My thesis focuses on the role of dance and liberation struggles within the African diaspora," she said. "Dance and song are alternative methods of release from oppressed peoples." \nMovement I paid homage to the role art played in the Civil Rights movement.\n"When you're facing water hoses and ugly mobs and jails," Nelson-Mason said, "music and the arts and creative expression were ways they nurtured their spiritual selves."\nMovement II is about the slave era, and the idea of dance being a mode of spiritual sustenance, Nelson-Mason said.\n"Different African ethnic groups were put on slave plantations together. Dance and music allowed them to connect," she said.\nOn plantations, slaves would dance in a counter-clockwise circle, called a ring shout.\nThe piece travels forward in time, exploring social and political themes.\n"It explores the idea that social dance many times spoke political difference," Nelson-Mason said. "The body can be a tool for voicing dissent."\nThe dancers paid tribute to professional dancers Alvin Ailey and Katherine Dunham in a section about black dance and the concert stage.\nThe concert ended with a piece entitled "... For Nayel," a tribute to Nelson-Mason's 18-month-old daughter. The dancers performed in front of a video showing Nayel dancing around a studio in overalls.\nLatrice Nelson-Henry narrates the final piece, saying, "We must teach our young to remember why they dance the way that they do."\nNelson-Mason said that thought goes back to her daughter.\n"I want to make sure she values her heritage, especially in a time when I think not everyone values it."\nShe said MTV and BET do not present the truth about African diaspora artwork.\n"You see people dance a certain way, and it always comes across raunchy or crazy," she said.\nProfessor Iris Rosa, who serves as the company's full-time director, choreographed a piece titled "Reflections," set to music from the motion picture soundtrack for "Malcolm X."\nRosa also choreographed a piece called "Emi Eniyan." \nRebekah Shorter, a fifth-year senior and company member, said all the dancers put in a move that they liked, "and then Professor Rosa liked it too, so she put it together." \nStudent choreography and collaborations filled in the rest of the concert. As part of the two-credit class the 14 members of the company take, they are assigned to diverse groups of three or four students and are required to pick music, a theme and choreography.\nShorter said the dancers rehearsed long hours for this show: twice a week for more than four hours in addition to some rehearsals outside of class. \n"Too many times people say that (dancers) don't work very hard, and that's not true," she said.\nThe live musicians who emoted in the right-hand corner of the stage gave life to the well-researched choreography and practiced dancers.\nDelia Alexander played cello, percussion and sang; Joe Galvin played drums and guitar; and Samillia R. Woods and Kelli Zimmerman served as vocalists.\nSophomore Daniella Dubrow attended the concert and said she liked the narration used in Nelson-Mason's movements.\n"It made me feel like I was there, going through the entire thing," she said. "When (the dancer) was beating with the whip, we were all beaten with the whip."\nDubrow said she doesn't get to see African diaspora dance much, and she learned from the show.\n"They touched on a lot of issues -- poverty, welfare, racism. They way they touched on it was the best way to do it. I didn't know anything about slavery before," she said.