#RACEish: Spectrum Dance Theater brings dance to the conversation on race

On May 5, Madrona-based Spectrum Dance Theater Company will hold the world premiere of its newest and groundbreaking show, “A Rap on Race.” The show is set to break boundaries between dance and theater and bring back the conversation on race to its truest and most honest form, say organizers. The show will play May 5 through 12 at Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Leo K. Theatre (155 Mercer St.).

“A Rap on Race” is the latest work from award-winning choreographer Donald Byrd, artistic director at Spectrum Dance Theater, in collaboration with award-winning actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith.

The show is inspired by a real-life recorded conversation on race between African-American poet and writer James Baldwin and Margaret Mead, a white anthropologist. Byrd and Deavere Smith will use a combination of theatrical performance with dance movements and music to join the dialogue on race and show how dance can be a vehicle for social change.

“I’m hoping that by excavating this artifact we will learn something from their conversation and how we talk about race now,” Byrd said. “They talk about race in a way that people don’t talk about it now. There isn’t that degree of honesty or willingness to expose oneself when talking about race.”

Byrd is hoping people will think about their own inherited notions about race and how those notions play out in their everyday life. He also believes that by merging different art forms and exploring the ways that each one of them speaks to the audience will enhance the experience.

“Dancing is a way of speaking the truth: When you start moving, it is inherently true, and by juxtaposing it with text, it becomes a way to communicate on more than just one level,” Byrd explained. “It’s an exploration on a lot of different levels.”

Spectrum Dance Theater president Russel Stromberg II said, “In some ways, dance theater can make the art more accessible to the audiences. This allows for there to be some a more direct storytelling together with dance moves and choreography.”

#RACEish

“A Rap on Race” is the third show of the Spectrum’s 2016 season, which has an overarching theme on race called #RACEish. With racial tensions flaring up in recent years and the rise of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Byrd was inspired to bring Spectrum into this social conversation and introduce these issues to the audiences through art.

#RACEish comes from the idea that all people are affected by race, whether through learned stereotypes taught by the ancestors or pop culture, and that “race-ish” allows for the dialogue to begin without labeling someone a racist.

“There are a lot of things in our belief system that we grew up with, and ‘raceish’ allows us to realize that we carry these stereotypes with us, whether we like it or not,” Stromberg said. “The ‘-ish’ on there is referring to the fact that we can be very quick to label people racist, and that breaks the dialogue and creates tensions.”

The season started with a soft introduction to the topic with two shows in February, during the Black History Month. “Rambunctious 2.0’ and “DANCE, DANCE, DANCE” were both part of a two-week Making the Invisible Visible festival. African-American composers wrote the music for the first weekend, and during the second weekend, Byrd touched upon the history of African aesthetic influence in American culture.

“My big question with these two shows was, if people would actually acknowledge and realize that African-Americans contribute to the society and the art, would that stop the violence against them, as usually you don’t hurt something you value?” Byrd said. “And by denying and not acknowledging this art, you’re denying yourself the beauty of their contribution.”

“A Rap on Race” is meant to move from the introduction to the topic to the culminating award-winning show “The Minstrel Show Revisited, which critiques the 19th-century black-faced entertainment genre that had perpetuated negative black stereotyping.

“In ‘The Minstrel Show,’ you start to hear your own stereotypes that you’ve been carrying round, even if you don’t agree with them,” Stromberg said. “I felt better after seeing it because it helped me understand how much this is a struggle for us, and I believe we can sort it out when we create safe environments for conversations about it, like this show and the season as a whole.”

Cultural ambassadors

Since Byrd had joined the dance company more than 13 years ago, Spectrum has been bringing the social justice issues to the world of art and dance. The organization’s mission of “Dance for all” has now moved beyond the Seattle community and the dance school and outreach programs that Spectrum offers.

For the fourth time, the dance company has been chosen as cultural ambassadors abroad as a part of a cultural exchange program through the U.S. Embassy. Spectrum company members have just returned from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they presented dance as a means of promoting social change.

From March 14 to 19, Spectrum Dance Theater Company worked with 12 Argentinian dancers who have trained in contemporary dance. Byrd led classes and workshops, and at the progra’s end, there was a public presentation of what they learned with participants from #RACEish.

“This year, we’re bringing some of the race discussion to Argentina, which is we believe is very interesting as they are watching our election year from abroad,” Stromberg said. “If we leave any of the countries we visit having inspired choreographers and dancers to use their expression to discuss social issues, then we were successful.”

For Byrd, serving as a cultural ambassador goes beyond just the performance and formal interactions.

“When they finished the performance on stage together they started crying and hugging each other, and it was like they had survived something together — I was very moved by it,” he said. “These connections [are] what I’m talking about when you transcend the national boundary and move to the real human being-to-human being connection.”

Spectrum also offers dance classes for all ages and hosts a number of outreach program, in partnership with other art communities around Seattle.
“Spectrum school is this maze of inclusivity, and it’s just beautiful harmony every day. We need those places in our community,” Stromberg said. “I hope that no matter how controversial the piece is that its impact is long-lasting and Spectrum is seen as an institution that Seattle can’t imagine leaving without.”

To comment on this story, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.