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column dance

Breaking the ice: Boosting endeavours to build live vocals, and excerpts

from the speeches of
bridges across multiple
Black culture via dance cultures and creates Ida B. Wells, one of the
founders of the National
sacred and intersec-
tional spaces, both based Association for the Ad-
in the Twin Cities area. vancement of Coloured
Led by a woman of colour, Deneane Richburg, Brownbody is a “At Penumbra, I saw the People- NAACP. It ex-
Culturati company that fights social injustice and prejudice against the beauty in Blackness, plored America’s history
from working with pow-
of lynching and racial
Black through a blend of figure skating, dance and theatres erful and beautiful Black oppression as means to
ArshiyA sethi people. Pangea made me understand its residual
here are a few defining experience and honouring the lineage.” aware of another place impact on modern
features about the city of According to Deneane, the world of of power that I had,” said American lives. This pro-
Minneapolis in Minnesota, the melanin-blessed is not homogene- Deneane recognising duction received a Sage
Dr. Arshiya Sethi writes which regularly makes it to ous and every Black artist is going to those who have contrib- award for the outstand-
on cultural issues. the ten most liveable cities have a different answer to the questions uted in making her who ing dance production.
After a rich career of T in America. One of among about race politics and it is often linked she is today. “Every time I get a
working on tangible the features is that it is a major hub for to their personal experience. Growing Talking about dance, grant or acknowledge-
and intangible aspects the arts, especially, the arts that accept up in the world of competitive skating she was involved in western dance, designed to awaken connections to ment it is really meaningful and I get
of the ecosphere of the no boundaries. Minneapolis is where Deneane immersed in an ideology that ballet, jazz and tap and received her the histories and topics relevant to all choked up, even as I want to shout
arts, she runs the Kri I spent the last year, rather the Twin excluded her ancestry’s truths. “Work- Masters in dance from Temple Uni- individuals of colour through artistic out aloud that someone believes in me,”
Foundation that Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and ing and growing in this space, to quote versity renowned for its cutting-edge productions and workshops. said Deneane referring to the feel-
promotes arts, came to know about the arts scene quite Zora Neale Hurston, I always felt most dance programme, and another one in In the past, Brownbody has pre- ing she experienced on the first ever
activism in the social well. One of the young companies that coloured when thrown against a sharp Afro-American Studies from University sented several pioneering projects for award she received from the American
and development caught my attention is Brownbody, set white background.” of Wisconsin at Madison. “It was that the stage and the ice, including Living composers’ forum. A feeling replicated
sector, especially via up by former competitive figure skater Even today, figure skating in the Twin point I needed to carve out space for Past (Re)memory, a stage work based when her latest work Quiet As It’s
‘artivism’, and the Deneane Richburg. Cities is a largely white and expensive myself and my ancestral history, using on Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved; The Kept won the Knight Arts Challenge
generation of knowl- “Grounded in African diasporic activity, with only a sprinkling of people the skills that I had.” Thus Brownbody Most Perfect Human Specimen, (part grant in 2015. This production is made
edge on intersecting perspectives, Brownbody builds artistic of colour. “In the 80s and 90s, there was created in 2007, and since then, of a 2009 production, Being Branded more meaningful because, with this,
issues. experiences that disrupt biased nar- were even fewer. It took a great while blending dance, theatre, and skating, ) which focuses on Saartjie Baartman, Brownbody entered the collaborative
ratives and prompts the audience to for a Black girl to be recognised. I had to Brownbody brings on to “centre stage,” the South African Khoi Khoi woman, space. In this case, it performed with
engage as active participants in the work very hard to move from the bot- stories and topics important to African taken to London and Paris and exhib- the Brooklyn-based, very powerful, a
journey,” explained Deneane. In race rife tom few to the top ranks, and I ascribe diaspora communities. In doing so, ited and exploited during the early twenty-year-old company of African
America, there is little new about such a that partially to the fact that skating offi- it expands horizons and changes 1800s. Due to her large posterior, she American women, Urban Bush Women
company. Many Black and artists of col- cials were not accustomed to seeing the perspectives, apart from breaking the was exhibited as an attraction in exhi- set up by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Zollar
our are doing the very same. But, here Black body on the ice in competition,” ice and welcoming the communities of bitions and freak shows in 19th-century along with a host of other artistes-
is the difference, “Brownbody accom- she said recalling the reality of her expe- colour. Dancing on ice is nothing new. Europe under the name Hottentot Ve- award winning choreographers,
Deneane has plishes this through a blend of modern rience. She also appreciates the support But, what differentiates the work of nus. “Hottentot” was the old name for Camille Brown, MacArthur Fellow, Kyle
the Khoi people. Her body was eventu-
Abraham, Temple University Professor,
Brownbody is the fact that the work is
of her mother who chose to volunteer at
dance, theatre, social justice, and figure
danced for skating,” said Deneane describing the figure skating events to prevent her least concerned by the optics of beauty ally used as the foundation for racist Dr Kariamu Welsh and Minnesota’s
and draws its claim not from waif-like
daughter from being overlooked. Soon
the ‘unboxable’ quality of the art that
science. Till the start of this century, her own multi-talented “conceptualist”
a number of Brownbody makes. the judges began taking notice and were bodies clad in sparkly costumes but remains were on display in Paris where Ralph Lemon, have inspired Deneane.
She is aware that just by being
In this circle of artistic participation
choreographers and overlapping of multiple circles of forced to give her what was due to her. from the beauty of the stories it tells, she had died in 1815. herself she fulfils a very important
and how it tells them, as well as the
In 2013, Brownbody produced Wait-
Many years later, she injured her knee
including, Chris the arts, Brownbody locates its work. and had to give up on competitive figure impact it has on the lives and thoughts ing For You…, at Highland Ice Arena in function for her community and her
Walker, Jose Deneane hesitates to call it perfor- skating. of people. St. Paul, an on-ice production featuring people. The lack of role models and the
While some people have described
a re-worked version of Living Past (Re)
associated expense has put skating out
But the injury did not prevent her
mance. “I struggle with the idea of per-
Fransico Barroso, formance,” she said, “for when it relates from continuing her dance which until the work of Brownbody as “site-specific memory, engaging Afro-modern dance of consideration for many individuals
Andrea Catchings, to Black culture it is very complicated. I then was an adjunct to her figure skat- dance”, Deneane sees far greater in- and figure skating. In 2015, Brownbody of colour, leading directly to under-rep-
resentation in the field. This is where
presented Quiet As It’s Kept at Victory
ing training. Now, she got more involved
tentionality. “In our programming, we
think of Vaudeville and other examples
Dr. Kariamu of popular art that reveal the exploita- with dance and theatre. She worked witness, reflect, dialogue, dance, and Memorial Ice Arena in Minneapolis. the work of Brownbody presents a
This work, created in collaboration with strong alternative just by featuring
Welsh, and Lela tion and appropriation of Black art at the globally recognised Penumbra heal,” said Deneane, “even as we disem- celebrated Twin Cities actress and vo- professional skaters of colour.
power destructive historic ideologies
Theatre, the oldest continuing Black
forms, and the perpetuation of oppres-
Aisha Jones sion of Black people.” So, instead, Dene- theatre in America and at the Pangea and learn how to self-define nourish- calist, Thomasina Petrus, blended Afro-
ane describes her work as “creating an World Theatre, which through its work ing change.” Their programming is modern dance, figure skating, theatre, letters@tehelka.com
Tehelka / 31 may 2018 62 www.Tehelka.com Tehelka / 31 may 2018 63 www.Tehelka.com
62-63 Column-Arshiya Sethi.indd 2-3 17/05/18 4:03 PM