One of the essential branches of modern dance’s family tree sprouted from the illustrious career of dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), who helped bring a vital African-American dimension to the field.
Probably even more significant than the actual dance works she created were the many people she influenced in her long life, including Alvin Ailey, who went on to form his own famed company, and Denver’s own Cleo Parker Robinson.
Robinson, artistic director of the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, pays tribute to her mentor and highlights some of those links in “Katherine Dunham . . . She Lives,” an enlightening and entertaining program running through Sunday.
Parker chose to present this homage in the company’s own theater in the historic Shorter AME Building in Five Points, a production that largely manages to overcome the facility’s obvious technical limitations, including a stage that is sometimes a bit too small.
The heart of the program comes in the second half, when the company pairs major works by Dunham and Ailey, tellingly highlighting the echoes of her style and approach in Ailey’s choreography.
This is the premiere of the ensemble’s reconstruction of Dunham’s choreography for “Ragtime,” a section from Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha.” It was originally created for a 1972 production of the opera by the Atlanta Symphony and Morehouse College.
Such reconstructions are essential to preserving this country’s rich but fragile dance patrimony. The Robinson Dance Ensemble was one of 10 companies to receive 2007 grants for such projects through the National Endowment for the Art’s American Masterpieces program.
With this work and two others on the program that it has long performed, the Denver company has become one of the most important repositories of Dunham’s work in the country — no small accomplishment.
Four sashaying women and their high-stepping partners, who swing onto the stage with chairs that become integral props, bring a suitably showy, flapper feel to “Ragtime.” The short, charmingly whimsical work smartly fits the rhythmic contours of Joplin’s perky rag.
Much of the look and spirit of that piece can be seen and felt in Ailey’s “Escapades,” set to a score by jazz legend Max Roach. The company added this 1983 work to its repertoire in 2006.
It opens with a coolly elegant duo with elongated, rounded movements, including a simple yet striking moment when the two dancers clasp hands and gently lean sideways, with one of the woman’s legs slightly jutting out as a counterbalance.
Then, 10 dancers, eventually joined by the two soloists, slide, sashay, shuffle and shimmy their way through the exuberant ensemble section, a high-energy, finger-snapping romp befitting the work’s title.
Dunham was a cultural anthropologist, traveling to the West Indies in 1937-38 and elsewhere to study indigenous dances and their African roots. Elements, such as elastic torsos and swiveling hips, became the foundation of her technique and are showcased in two first-half offerings, not full-fledged dances but kind of technical exercises assembled by Theo Jamison, who restaged “Ragtime.”
Both are performed to traditional African music vibrantly performed by three drummers — Koffi Toudji, Ron Hurley and Fred Jordan.
Dunham’s principal choreographic innovation came in fusing the African dance she embraced with other forms, as she does in one of her most historically significant works, “Choros” (1944), combining it with classical ballet, Latin dance and Broadway idioms.
As usual, the company’s 12 technically sound, highly athletic dancers throw themselves into this repertoire with obvious enthusiasm.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Katherine Dunham . . . She Lives!”
Dance. March 6-9. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theatre, 119 Park Avenue West. $20-$30. 303-295-1759 ext. 13 or .
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it used the wrong word in describing Katharine Dunham. She was a cultural anthropologist as well as a pioneering African-American choreographer.
