NDEO鈥檚 Guest Blog Series features posts written by our members about their experiences in the fields of dance and dance education. We continue this series with a post by Naima Prevots, Professor Emerita at American University and current Professor in NDEO's Online Professional Development Institute (OPDI). Guest posts reflect the experiences, opinions, and viewpoints of the author and are printed here with their permission. NDEO does not endorse any business, product, or service mentioned in guest blog posts. If you are interested in learning more about the guest blogger program or submitting an article for consideration, please click here.
In 2021, I developed a course for NDEO鈥檚 Online Professional Development Program called OPDI 122: Celebrating Voices of Choreographers: Applications to Teaching, Learning, and Appreciation.聽In this blog post, I want to share ideas about the last unit in this course, 鈥淰oices of Immigrant and Indigenous Artists.鈥� In this two week course segment I have two goals:
- To help teachers and choreographers honor and encourage students of diverse cultural heritage.
- To help teachers identify immigrant and indigenous artists with varied cultural roots who would be willing to share their heritage by teaching, performing, explaining.
I taught the above course twice, and it is clear that for many students there is interest in these two goals, but there is also some fear and hesitation surrounding them. It is always hard to venture into unfamiliar territory. It could be helpful seeing how these goals were put into action, so in this blog post, I will share my approach; the videos we watched; the decisions made about the material to study; what we learned; and what I think teachers in a broad range of K-12, colleges / universities and dance studio settings can take from our experiences.
I started by looking at 鈥渃ulturally rooted鈥� videos on the Jacob鈥檚 Pillow Dance Interactive website. It's probably important to note that some of us are using that term instead of ethnic, or other designations, as it is more authentic and encompassing. The Jacob鈥檚 Pillow Dance Interactive website has many videos that are beautifully filmed, and very short - usually under two minutes, due to intellectual copyright rules. There is also explanatory text, although the information is often limited and does not fully explain the cultural heritage in which the choreography is rooted. I am not a dance anthropologist, nor am I an expert in any of these diverse dance forms. The first time I taught the course, in 2021, I chose seven videos, from the following heritages: Indian, Native American, Mexican, Cambodian, Appalachian Clog, Flamenco, and Hawaiian. When preparing to teach the course again in Fall 2022, I reviewed these selections. I decided to make changes and learn more about each work. I looked up the artists and dance groups that I had chosen, did more internet research about, and sought out their phone numbers, emails, and information. In many cases this was easy, and the information was available.
I wanted to have more knowledge about the videos and the artists featured in them to share with students. As the research proceeded, I substituted Kankouran, a company with West African heritage, for the Flamenco and Appalachian Clog units as I had a personal connection with the director of Kankouran. It was not difficult to find phone numbers and email for some of the artists featured in the videos that I had selected from the Dance Interactive website, specifically: Louis Mofsie, director of Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, and the Calpulli Mexican Company co-directors, Juan Castano and Alberto Lopez. Mofsie鈥檚 indigenous roots are Hopi / Winnebago; Castano and Lopez are immigrants from Mexico. There were phone calls and emails with all three, and they were happy to share information and ideas that I could use in my course. They told me more about their heritage, about the videos, and the programs they do in schools and other places.
I had trouble connecting with the Hawaiian company directors from the original Jacob鈥檚 Pillow video, so I went online and found information for another dance artist, Patrick Makuak膩ne. His indigenous roots are in Hawaii where he was born, and he now lives in San Francisco where he has a company called N膩 Lei Hulu I Ka W膿kiu. He is a Hula Master, teacher, choreographer, and community activist. After a wonderful Zoom conversation, he agreed to make a five minute video specially for the course, with explanations and demonstrations. Yes, it was marvelous!
I could not locate the director of the Jacob鈥檚 Pillow Cambodian video that we watched in 2021, and again the internet was helpful. I found a different Cambodian dance company, located in Virginia, called Cambodian American Heritage. The directors, teachers, and performers were immigrants who had come to this country in the early 1980s, due to political turmoil in their country. They had done dance programs at the Library of Congress, which were available on the internet, and I had several conversations with one of their teachers and directors. These were enlightening: I learned more about the meaning and background of their work, what it means in terms of their heritage, and their goals in preservation, teaching and preservation of Cambodian dance. They are anxious to reach beyond the Cambodian community. In fact, it is true that all the groups indicated they wanted to reach out to others outside of their own cultural groups.聽
There was a bit of switching in terms of the Indian dance material. In 2021 I used a video of a well known group from India: Nrityagram. This time I decided it made more sense to use an Indian company, Ragamala, whose immigrant founders Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy are based in Minneapolis and tour nationally and internationally. The Indian classical form Bharatanatyam is the basis for much of their work, but they are also interested in collaborations with other artists: musicians, contemporary choreographers, and artists from diverse cultural heritage. My emails and phone calls were answered swiftly, and I had wonderful conversations with Aparna. She provided me with a great deal of material for the course: videos, study guides, and information about their heritage, performances, school and community programs and more.
The only artist I personally knew in all of this exploration was Assane Konte, creator and director of Kankouran Dance Company, working with dances from the West African heritage. He was on faculty when I was Director of Dance at American University, and he generously met with me and gave a video of a company performance, with excellent explanations related to meaning and heritage.
To summarize, students watched six videos: Ragamala, Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, Calpulli Mexican Dancers,聽N膩 Lei Hulu I Ka W膿kiu,聽Cambodian Dancers, and Kankouran. In giving the written assignment I focused on movement observation. The students were instructed as follows: 鈥淔or each video write about one specific movement you noticed and describe two ways the dancers use(d) their body that is important to you and perhaps different from what you know and teach. Be specific regarding use of time, space, and force.鈥�
It was amazing how quickly students in the course realized they knew culturally diverse artists in their communities or states, and wanted to contact them. It was gratifying to see how quickly they explored their own student diversity in ways they had not done before. One realized she had large numbers of Armenian students, and when she approached them about dances from their culture, they were delighted to share, celebrate identity, and invite her to their studios and teachers. One person had an Indian-American student, who she encouraged to perform a Bollywood-Hip-hop fusion piece for class. As the student performed, apparently her face shone with joy for the acceptance of her culturally-rooted dance, and her classmates cheered. Another person had not realized she lived near a Native American reservation, and soon was able to visit and share in discussion and performance. In addition, it was so satisfying to see how people in the course were sharing their ideas with one another.
Naima Prevots has been performer, choreographer, teacher, critic, historian, administrator, and in 2019 was awarded NDEO鈥檚 Lifetime Achievement Award. Early in her career she performed with Merce Cunningham鈥檚 company in 1952 as a student at Brandeis University, in 1955 with Marie Marchowsky at Henry Street Playhouse, and later with Pola Nirenska鈥檚 Company in Washington, D.C. Naima鈥檚 choreography was commissioned by Princeton Ballet, and the Jewish Community Centers in Maryland and Washington, and in the 1960s she co-founded Dimensions Dance Company, performing and choreographing in many venues. She is Professor Emerita, American University, where from 1967 until retirement in 2003 she helped found the Department of Performing Arts, serving as Director of Dance and Chair of the Department. From 1971 to 1983 she created a summer program at the university, bringing in companies of Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Murray Louis, Erick Hawkins, Don Redlich, and many others to teach for students and teachers who came from all over nationally and internationally, and to perform for large Washington audiences. As a critic and historian she has written numerous articles, reviews, monographs, and has published three books: Dancing in the Sun, Hollywood Choreographers 1915-1937; American Pageantry: A Movement for Art and Democracy; Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War. She has served on the boards of many organizations including CORD; SDHS; NDEO; ADG; Fulbright Association, and has been a consultant for both National Endowment for the Arts and for the Humanities and the Arts and Humanities Councils of Washington and California. Her consulting includes working in Israel, where she helped develop the High School dance programs. As an arts educator she was designated an Artist in the Schools and was on the staff of PROJECT CAREL, one of the first government supported efforts to bring dance and the other arts into the schools. As the recipient of six Fulbright Fellowships, she worked in Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia, Portugal, and Germany. Naima has been teaching in NDEO's OPDI program since 2012.
Photos courtesy of Cambodian American Heritage Company