Dimensions Dance Theater Celebrates 40th Anniversary at Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts Today

By: Oct. 05, 2013
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In partnership with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Dimensions Dance Theater, the Bay Area's preeminent African-American Dance Company, is proud to announce the celebration of its 40th anniversary on October 5, 2013. This momentous occasion will be marked with a formal procession followed by a retrospective of the company's four decades of creativity and community-building. The evening will conclude with the world premiere of all four parts of Rhythms of Life: Down the Congo Line, a monumental work representing the legacy of traditional Congolese dance forms in the New World. Dance performances will be attended throughout by live music and ritual enactments.

Over the course of its rich history, Dimensions has premiered more than 50 evening-length works, many created by company Co-Founder and Artistic Director Deborah Vaughan, and others by distinguished guest choreographers. For its 40th anniversary celebration Dimensions will showcase some of the range of its production including excerpts from My People (1973), choreographed by Co-Founder Elendar Barnes; Yesterday/ Yesternow (1983), choreographed by Garth Fagan; Isicathulo and Amatshe / (Can and Boot) (1988), choreographed by Dingani Lelokoane; Resilience (2000) a collaboration Between Shores with Omar Sosa, Zimbabwean mbira artist Stella Chiweshe, and Cuban choreographer Isais Rojas; Spirits Uplifted (2005) choreographed by Deborah Vaughan, a collaboration with Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir; Rooted In Ritual (2006),a collaboration with Haitian dance maker Peniel Guerrier; andCatalyst: One by One (2011), a multidisciplinary work featuring a commissioned score by the late composer and musician Khalil Shaheed.

The highlight of the evening's celebration is devoted to the world premiere of all four parts ofRhythms of Life: Down the Congo Line. Rhythms of Life is one of the company's most ambitious works to date, tracing the evolution of traditional Congolese dance forms from their birthplace onward to Brazil, the Caribbean, and finally New Orleans. Vaughan invited four dance makers with roots at various points along the Congolese diaspora to choreograph one section each:Hervé Makaya (Congo), Isaura Oliveira (Brazil), Jose "Cheo" Rojas (Cuba), and Latanya Tigner(New Orleans). Although portions of the work premiered in 2012, Dimensions' 40th anniversary celebration is the first time all four sections will be performed together.

All told, Dimension's 40th anniversary celebration will involve more than 30 artists -- dancers, vocalists, and instrumentalists, including MJ's Brass Boppers (Hurrican Katrina Survivors), Kiazi Malonga, and Brazilian, Cuban, and Congolese drum batteries. Members of the audience have an opportunity to participate in the program -- whether by taking part in the opening processional, by making offerings at an altar modeled on sacred elements from the African diaspora, or by dancing at the program's conclusion.

"Celebration at 40 affirms Dimensions' vital legacy as one of the most long-lived and fruitful products of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s," says Vaughan. "We look forward to our next phase of artistic creativity and activism."

For four decades under the leadership of Co-Founder and Artistic Director Deborah Vaughan, Dimensions Dance Theater has dedicated itself to creating, performing, and teaching dance that reflects the lives and historical experience of African Americans. Under Vaughan's artistic leadership, Dimensions Dance Theater presents traditional African dances, as well as original contemporary choreography drawn from African, Jazz, and Modern dance idioms. Its repertory includes original works by its award-winning artistic director along with commissioned works by some of the most acclaimed choreographers in Africa and the African diaspora.

Dimensions has garnered national and international acclaim for its performances. In 1984 Dimensions was chosen to perform at the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival, and in 1988 the company appeared in the first National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta. Then in 1995 Dimensions performed in the Forum for Contemporary Dance/Dance for Tolerance Festival in Bonn, Germany. More recently, the company has traveled to the Congo, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Jordan, and Cuba, performing its critically acclaimed Between Shores and In The Shadows of Our Ancestors...Mudzimu. Dimensions also tours regularly throughout California and the U.S.

Dimensions Dance Theater presents an annual Home Season in Oakland and San Francisco, and since 1993 the company has spearheaded Rites of Passage, an educational program serving more than 850 children and youth each year. Rites of Passage has been recognized with a Marcus Foster Foundation Award and the Jefferson Award, known as the "Nobel Prize for public service".

Deborah Vaughan is the artistic director, principal choreographer, and co-founder of Dimensions Dance Theater, a contemporary Dance Company that was founded in Oakland, California in December 1972 to promote public awareness of the central role that African Americans have played in defining American art, culture, and social change. Vaughan is strongly committed to artistic collaboration, and has worked with an eclectic mix of internationally recognized artists including jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, South African jazz artists Hugh Masekela andThamasanqa Hiatywayo, vocalist Linda Tilllery, a capella gospel and blues group Street Sounds, jazz artist Idris Ackamoor, Chinese-American dance-maker Lily Cai, composer Anthony Brown, and the late composer and recording artist Khalil Shaheed. After attending the 50th anniversary of Brazzaville, Congo in 2010, Vaughan was inspired to create a monumental work representing the legacy of traditional Congolese dance forms, a work for which she has collaborated with longtime colleague Latanya Tigner, as well as Hervé Makaya, Isaura Oliveira, Jose "Cheo" Rojas,Kiazi Malonga, and MJ's Brass Boppers.

Vaughan is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards. Among them are the City of Oakland Artists Among Us Award (1997); Today's Women Community Service Award (1998); two Isadora Duncan Awards for choreography including Common Ground (1996, which also won in the category of best performance) and People of the Zozos (1991). Additional honors include a KQED Black History Month Award, a San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Award for Outstanding Performance, the Jerash Festival Award for Culture and Arts (Aman, Jordan), and the Jefferson Award for Community Leadership. In 2006 Vaughan was inducted into Alameda County's Women's Hall of Fame as Outstanding Woman of the Year in the category of Culture and Art; that same year she also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from In Dance magazine; and in 2007 she earned a Certificate of Special Recognition from Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

TICKETS:
$25 in advance
$30 at the door
To purchase call 415.978.ARTS (2787) or visit tickets.ybca.org/single/EventListing.aspx.



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