Found in the Translation: Five Black Male Choreographers By Arnecia Patterson

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And in our present stage of development, we are still utilizing only two languages: one of survival and one of affirmation. One reactive, the other active. One the foundation of all commerce and wars, the other the foundation of science and the arts. One, in spite of the embellishments of technology to warfare and business, does not elevate us beyond our primal concerns of base existence and territoriality; while the other, in spite of the commerce that now surrounds creativity, is all that separates us from the beasts of the forests and the beast within.

- Gloria Naylor, Children of the Night

The work of Ron K. Brown, Rennie Harris, Alonzo King, Ralph Lemon, and Kevin Ward investigates the body as a gathering point for different streams of cultural experience. Yet while the individual themes that emerge in their choreography can hardly be attributed to one source, race is a common denominator that links them—albeit in different ways—to each other. In looking at dances by these and other black choreographers, how many of us come to the work already compromised in our ability to understand it? Cultural differences collide; one thing is said and another seen by spectators who bring their own gaze to the activity of seeing. Life experience and esthetic training shade language comprehension as well as its use. As audiences we want a conversation with artists and also with each other. Yet what if, after viewing the dance, we remain incomprehensible to each other?

A factor in cultural incomprehensibility is that Black American choreographers are tied by critics and audiences to a set of expectations that come from an esthetic monolith made up of “churching,” “Africaining,” wailing, tapping, jitterbugging, and a host of other stock performances that are disseminated through popular culture and history. Choreography by black choreographers tends to be viewed in the shadow of these pervasive stereotypical actions. The means of expression—the actual movement deployed by black choreographers—is frequently seized upon, both by critics and viewers who wish to identify these dance techniques by their classic or “Western” attributes and ignore the particular ways in which they refract the experience of being black.