MSU Ends Celebration of African-American Choreography DANCEWORKS 2010 4/11

Danceworks 2010 celebrates African-American choreographers whose work spans eight decades of dance performance history. The festival will end its run on April 11th. Performed by MSU students, these works culminate a year-long inquiry by College of the Arts faculty, students and members of the MSU community prompted by a fundamental question: What is African-American Choreography?

Curated by MSU faculty Lori Katterhenry, Elizabeth McPherson and Neil Baldwin, the featured works are Negro Spirituals (1928-42) by Helen Tamiris; Bushasche Etude (1949) by Pearl Primus; Games (1951) by Donald McKayle; "Stomp Dance," an excerpt from Bitter Tongue (1989) by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar; Arbitrary Intersection (2009) by Robert Battle and Thin Line...The journey between creativity & madness (2009) by Jay T. Jenkins.

Adding further luster to a decidedly bold program will be Marino, performed and choreographed by MSU students Lisa Greenberg and Carlos Gonzalez, which is one of only two dances to represent the Northeast Region at the National American College Dance Festival in May at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

"Dance has a transformative potential that I want to make real at Montclair State. What with the change in the White House and the call for a national conversation on race, I decided to go local. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes resonates for me. No more theoretical passes at the meaning of black dance in America" said Lori Katterhenry, Director of the Dance Program in MSU's Deptartment of Theatre and Dance.

While the most recent work is up-to-the-minute hip-hop, central to the program is the re-creation of Donald McKayle's seminal work Games. Mr. McKayle, now a resident of Irvine, California, came to Montclair in February to work with the dance students and Elizabeth McPherson, Assistant Professor at MSU, on this vintage early work which has become a cultural and choreographic treasure.

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