Around the world dance is often quite literally the physical embodiment of cultural identity and practice. Yet conversely, for individual dancers, the power of such traditions can give rise to certain expectations and even stereotypes based on perceived identity.
Rulan Tangen in *Ancestor Eyes* (2008), which will be screened Sept. 13. Tangen will also participate in “Dancing Who I Am,” a panel discussion and dance concert Sept. 12.
Next week the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will explore the role of ethnicity in contemporary dance — its pros and cons — with “Dancing Who I Am,” a panel discussion and informal concert featuring faculty members as well as leading critics and choreographers from around the country.
The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, in Edison Theatre, located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information contact the PAD at (314) 935-5858 or visit padarts.wustl.edu.
“We have an impressive group of dance scholars and choreographers coming from St. Louis and from both coasts,” says Mary-Jean Cowell, associate professor and coordinator of the Dance Program, who will moderate the discussion. “Almost everyone on the panel will either perform themselves or present their choreography through their company. The evening will be as much a dance concert as it is a discussion.”
Guests will include Rulan Tangen, a distinguished visiting scholar in the PAD this fall. Recently named one of the “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine, Tangen is director and choreographer of DANCING EARTH – Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations, whose work reflects both the rich cultural heritage and the contemporary identity of Native peoples. She will perform her solo The Naming, which explores the coming together of sky and earth to name the plants and animals.
Elizabeth Zimmer
Other guests will include the writer and critic Elizabeth Zimmer, former dance editor of The Village Voice; Thomas DeFrantz, a professor of music and theater arts at MIT, who specializes in African American performance; and New Delhi-born choreographer Ivan Pulinkala, director of dance at Kennesaw State University (KSU). DeFrantz will perform Just a Gigolo, a tap piece excerpted from his Monk’s Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonious Monk. Pulinkala will be joined by Min Kim, assistant professor of dance at KSU, to perform his recent Magnetic Fields.
The Slaughter Project — directed by Cecil Slaughter, senior lecturer in the PAD — will perform OverDrive, an ensemble piece inspired by the acceleration and interaction of traffic. Ting-Ting Chang, the PAD’s Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance, will present her Los Angeles-based company, Dream Dance Contemporary Arts, which will perform Flying Goddess, a traditional Chinese dance, as well as Falling Petals, an original work by Chang. Rounding out the discussion will be Alicia Graf, a former principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Thomas DeFrantz
“Dancing Who I Am” is sponsored by the PAD and the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values as part of the semester-long series “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy.” Additional support is provided by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Students, the Office of Diversity Initiatives, the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
As part of the Ethnic Profiling series, Tangen also will host a screening of the award-winning Native American short film Ancestor Eyes (2008) for the Buder Center at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13.
Written and directed by Kalani Queypo, Ancestor Eyes stars Tangen as Willa, a young Native woman who falls sick and returns to home of her mother (Tantoo Cardinal), where both must come to terms with her illness. Over the last two years the film has won prizes at close to a dozen film festivals across North America. Following the screening Tangen will lead a discussion about the treatment of Native peoples and themes in film. She’ll also screen a behind-the-scenes interview with the choreographer for The New World as well as excerpts from the films Apocalypto and Urundun/The End. The latter work, by the actor Alex Meraz, is currently in post-production.
The screening is free and open to the public and takes place in Brown Hall Lounge, located at the intersection of Forsyth Boulevard and Chaplain Drive. For more information, call (314) 935-4510.
Ivan Pulinkala