The class was only halfway through the squatting and kicking warm-ups. Already Mardeeb Easterly, age 22, from Knoxville, Tenn., was sweating hard.
Regardless, his instructor for the Black Dance USA workshop in Dunham technique, Theodore Jamison, grabbed Easterly’s chest and lifted up his body until it was at the correct posture.
“I was drenched, but he didn’t care,” Easterly said. “He made me step outside of my comfort zone.”
For the 25th year, Black Dance USA, a five-day national dance festival focusing on African and African-derived dance techniques, brought dancers from all over the country to the Center of Creative Arts from May 26-30.
The annual event includes four days of dance workshops, a dance performance including the nation’s top dance companies, and a film showcase. Better Family Life, Inc., a non-profit organization focused on community development, has organized the event all 25 years.
This was Easterly’s second year coming to Black Dance USA with his former middle-school dance teacher.
“In Knoxville, we are Black Dance Tennessee,” he said. “There’s no one else to compare to.”
So when the Tennessee group comes to St. Louis, they get to see the best dancers in African or African-derived dance from around the country, which pushes them harder.
Malaika Guthrie, Easterly’s teacher, has come to Black Dance USA for 15 years.
“It’s the only conference I can rely on,” she said. “Every year, I can’t wait to work my body to death – I mean to life. You breathe to live, you live to dance and you dance for life.”
Guthrie said she not only comes for the dancing, but also for the warm community that the festival creates.
Before the dance showcase on May 29, Deborah Ahmed, senior VP for cultural programs with Better Family Life, took time to recognize all the dancers and recognize the community they have built together.
“When I was a little girl, I thought that the only kind of dancer I could be was a ballerina,” Ahmed stated in the event program.
“I didn’t know that I had options. That I could dream differently. To me, that’s the beauty of Black Dance USA.”
The performance featured three dance troupes: West Indian Folk Dance Company from Chicago, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre from New York and Muntu Dance Theatre from Chicago.
Directed by Abdel Salaam, Forces of Nature got roaring applause for its two pieces. In one piece, a female dancer came out running behind a long white folding table. She jumped on it, spiraling over it. Then it became apparent as the dance unfolded that the scene was an emergency room.
Several audience members said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The dance was powerful and expressive, and it came from the heart of Salaam’s childhood experience, he said. Salaam’s mother was a head ER nurse in the 1960s, and the work wore her down.
“I would watch her over the years, not sure whether she was the caregiver or the patient,” he said.
Abdel Salaam’s company has come to St. Louis about six times. And he will always come back, he said.
Salaam went to school with Malik Ahmed, founder and CEO of Better Family Life. Salaam’s first show in New York was a fundraiser to send Ahmed to St. Louis. And since then, Black Dance USA has supported Forces of Nature, especially in its early development.
“Black Dance USA produced us when other people didn’t,” Salaam said. “Malik was one of the first to give us a platform.”
Now the company has been producing high-quality dance for the past 28 years.
Chiquita Payne, from Brooklyn, N.Y., has come to Black Dance USA for 20 years.
“It becomes a family reunion,” Payne said. “We get to see what we’ve accomplished dance-wise and family-wise.”
Payne remembers when some of the drummers were five years old.
At intermission of the performance, Carolyn Seward, chief operations officer at Better Family Life, said, “This is a unifying environment.”
She pointed to the children and families in the packed house at the Emerson Theater at Washington University.
She pointed to Eugene B. Redmond, poet, professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and 2009 Lifetime Achieve in Education for The St. Louis American Foundation. There were members of the Missouri Arts Council, who have been supporters since the beginning. Ron Jackson, a prominent leader in the black community, was seated near the front.
Seward’s husband brought four foster children whom he works with, all adolescent black boys.
“As long as we stay connected to the community, we’ll be okay,” she said, regarding the longevity of the festival. “We have to listen to what they want.”
