Regular Feature…
ADAD Asks…
In each Hotfoot newsletter, ADAD interviews an experienced dance professional with connections to the APD / Black dance sector and asks them 10 direct questions.
This edition, we meet
Thea Barnes
1. On a day to day basis what makes up the content of your working life as a dance practitioner?
As the Resident Dance Supervisor for the West End production of The Lion King my days vary between being teacher and administrator.
I audition, train, and manage all artists working with the show. I work along side the Director, Musical Director and technical staff by recommending then implementing rehearsal and production strategies that keep the integrity of the choreography intact and performed to the highest level of excellence. It is my responsibility to maintain the choreography of this West End Production as set by the artistic vision of Director Julie Taymor and Choreographer Garth Fagan.
As an independent dance researcher I write articles on dance and critiques of performances and discuss investigations into dance practice. My particular interest is in the research of the practice of dance within the African Diaspora. I also mentor up and coming choreographers and tutor undergraduate dissertation students.
As a practitioner of movement I maintain a rigid personal regime of yoga, cardiovascular and weight resistance training with ballet classes added in for good measure when ever my schedule allows.
2. The UK dance scene. In what ways do you interact professionally with British based dancers, companies, theatres, or organisations?
I am both a participant and observer of the British Dance community.
During Lion King auditions and then hiring of UK trained talent I am able to assess the quality of training as well as aptitude for performance to meet the riggers of our production.
As an audience member, my work as a writer and researcher allows me to see trends in movement, plus with my association with organisations like ADAD, Irie! Dance Theatre, Arts Council England, Equity, Dance UK, The Place, LABAN Centre, Surrey University and others, I am able to assess cultural, social, and political impacts that affect the practice of dance in Britain.
However, my attendance of conferences and meetings both here and aboard also provides me with a global sense of dance practice. I try to understand dance as a universal practice that each person in a given community does differently.
3. If you had complete artistic and financial freedom what kind of event or project would you devise to promote African Peoples dance and all its styles to UK audiences and venues?
I envisage a 10 year project with two years pre-planning of the initial event, making a total of 12 years. This event would be a three week engagement presenting dance for entertainment and arenas for discussions related to, but not necessarily all about, dance.
There would be performances, areas designated for dance as a participatory activity and not necessarily as spectacle, lecture demonstrations and conferences where papers on particular subject areas are presented. Awards would be given perhaps for excellence but also to dance practitioners in movement therapy, teaching or for having been active in dance for an era.
This conference would certainly target dance practitioners, but ultimately strategies would be devised to draw in members of the media and general public with less experience of dance and its varied manifestations. Goals for the initial planning period and subsequent years should be broken into 2 categories: short term and long term. Short term goals would focus on the presentation of notable companies, presentation of papers and discussion topics current for each year.
Long term goals would be designed to benefit practitioners and dance enthusiasts by targeting areas of need within the British context; research to archive the work of a practitioner, establishment of a youth group within a target area or schemes to provide 10 year support for a young choreographer and their company or other dance organisations of a sort or even support for young movement therapists to work in health clinics in areas of need through out Britain.
The yearly event is how interest is generated for the next year and so on till end of the 10 year period. The 1st year is also the time to choose the activities that will continue for the next 10 years on a year in and year out schedule. Feedback, reports/lectures, or performances resultant from the long term activities will be presented in each year during the main event. Hopefully short term activities will keep the enthusiasm going while long term activities continue in the community throughout each year. It is also hoped that long term activities will continue pass the 10 year period.
A plan like this would be geared toward establishing dance activities that tap Africanist dance practices; traditional/contemporary, hybrid or authentic, theatre and social recreation, sacred, holistic and experimental practices. This plan also seeks to establish roots in target communities to hopefully insure not just the practice but also high visibility over an extended period of time.
4. Have you ever sensed a kind of glass ceiling in your career?
Of course but I always knew it was there and never allowed it to plunge me into thinking I was any less capable.
5. What dreams / ambitions have you seen pass you by and what ambitions in your career would you still like to achieve?
DREAMS: I auditioned and was asked to join the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre while studying with Dance Theatre of Harlem so you could say I missed a real in depth relationship with a tutu…..
AMBITIONS: There are so many but they are personal goals… so, hummm, which will I share in this forum? I’d like to achieve a yogic full arm balance!
6. As a dance practitioner what three words sum up your work as a performer, choreographer and or teacher?
Keep on movin’…….!*
7. Do you feel there are any steps missing in ones career path for UK dance artists?
It has been my experience that some dance artists in the UK lack a sense of legacy especially those artists with strong interest in dance forms of the African Diaspora. The history offered in dance training is incomplete and what is offered is Eurocentric and with regard to Africanist expressions within the British context, the history is ill-informed or unavailable - in effect, invisible. If the Africanist Presence in Britain is not reclaimed, restored in name, protected and respected, we who do know will have but ourselves to blame.
No dance comes to fruition in a bottle. Whilst dance practices share on many levels, an acknowledgement of basic tenets would go a long way in providing ALL UK dance artists a true sense of their place in the evolution of dance in this country and the world.
I also believe training that encourages a dancing body capable of several different ways of knowing movement is the final benchmark for dance training in this country.
8. What is your present interpretation of African Peoples Dance (APD)/Black Dance and its relevance to the overall British dance scene and why?
At the beginning of the 20th century in America, dance mobilized its ideals and fortified its belief systems for all American dance practitioners and particularly for Africanist practices. African American practitioners set about re-writing dance history, acknowledging role models and articulating their methods for dance making - rewritten to acknowledge many overlooked dance practitioners and to dispel myths and misconceptions.
Dances, from theatre productions to social recreation, from traditional and sacred practices to mergers with contemporary and classical ballet - became a means to soothe the spirit and build confidence for African American communities.
In this 21st century universities and public establishments like the Schonberg Library, New York Performing Arts Library, Library of Congress in the States now carry dance programs and libraries stocked with everything from videos to notation scores to newspaper clippings to encyclopaedias detailing the dance practices of all Americans. The Africanist presence is there. African American dance practice and practitioners are acknowledged and have established their credibility and recognition. The evidence is clear and there is no doubting the undeniable contribution and indelible effect and presence of Africanist dance practice on all American dance.
The contribution of Africanist dance practice in performance, social and recreational forms in Britain is also just as present and prevalent.
In this country though the history is still unwritten, credibility unsubstantiated, recognition, marginal. However, write African Dance Classes in your internet browser, narrowing your search to the UK and you will hit several individual sites and links offering classes. Performances at Sadler’s Wells, The Place and the Barbican Centre list companies with an African presence.
Africanist dance practices form the foundations that enable creativity in jazz and break dancing and its derivative, street dance.
Street dance has revolutionised dance performance in the music and film industry just as vernacular jazz dance revolutionised dance performance for early 20th century musical theatre. Street dance is not just popular, it is endemic being taught everywhere from leisure centres to Pineapple Dance Studios in London.
Musical theatre also owes much of its early development to Africanist music and dance traditions found in American minstrelsy. British musical theatre benefited from this transliteration of Africanist expressions. Practices from the continent of Africa, related expressions from South America and Caribbean add to social forms with samba, salsa and Capoeira illustrating the practice of Africanist forms in Britain is on going.
The demise of major dance groups Kokuma and Adzido with their overt African expressions is only the demise of these high profile companies. It is certainly not the demise of the practice.
9. What keeps you focused and motivated?
Faith.
10. What advice or ‘words of wisdom’ could you offer to those people working in the APD / Black dance arena?
Never lose sight of your dreams. Inspiration and belief in your self and strength in your body can make any goal obtainable. Trust.
Thea Nerissa Barnes is Resident Dance Supervisor for The Lion King in London’s West End. She has had a distinguished performing career with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Martha Graham Dance Company. Thea holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Dance from the Juilliard School, New York; a Master’s Degree in Dance Education from Columbia Teachers College, New York; and a Master of Philosophy degree from City University, London.
