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The performances for a specialized audience and workshop participants followed ten paid days of sessions designed to prepared these artists to move forward into main stream dance presentation in the United States. I was told the artists were reimbursed transportation costs and a $600 honorarium for participating, small considering ten days and hours per day, but nonetheless substantial. The thoroughness of the workshops as envisioned and realized by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), the Project’s administrator, through local organizers, covered everything from business and marketing planning, building a network of presenters, board members, volunteers to the entire context of presenting traditional and traditionally -informed artists. For the final two days of showcase performances, Rebecca Blunk and Jane Preston of NEFA and Rachel Cooper from the Asia Society’s Performing Arts Program were present.

Jane Preston, NEFA’s Director of Programs, informed me the RDDI had just finished a similar session in Seattle. The Workshops have been planned, she said, around areas where there is support for such programs: organizations, artists, audiences. NEFA is looking at Texas and Miami as possible venues. She expressed amazement and delight at the caliber of artists participating, stating that some of them were acknowledged masters. I silently added “Amen.”

The Faculty for the Dance Lab included: Donald Byrd; Joan Grey; Judy Hussie-Taylor; Spider Kedelsky; Lily Kharrazi; Nola Mariano; Ranee Ramaswamy; Anthony Shay; E San San Wong; Ruby Verediano-Ching.

The presentations included the following artists and ensembles:

Alseny Soumah, a former member of Guinea’s Les Ballets Africains;
Colette Marie Eloi, El-Wah Movement representing the African Diaspora;
Charya Burt, Cambodian Classical Dance Company;
Sabrina Shuang Hou, Peony Performing Arts (Kunqu Opera, China);
Vishnu Tattva Das, Odissi Vilas: Sacred Dance of India;
Melody Takata, Gen Taiko (Japan);
Kyoungil Ong, Ong Dance Company(Korea);
Hearan Chung, Northern California Korean Dance Association;
Sharlyn Sawyer, Ballet Afsaneh (Persia and the Silk Road);
Luis Valverde, Peruvian Dance Company;
Bonifacio Valera, Jr., Barangay Dance Company (Philippines)

Fortunately I had previously seen several of the artists. February 24 and 25 I managed to see 30 minute presentations by Alseny Soumah, Sharlyn Sawyer, Sabrina Hou, Vishnu Tattva Das, Hearan Chung, Melody Takata, Luis Valverde and Colette Marie Eloi.

Sabrina Hou has taken the Kunqu Opera form, recently named a UNESCO Intangible World Cultural Heritage, and expanded its movement range with judiciously chosen classical ballet postures, retaining head, torso, gestural movements and walking style. Hou, fourth generation of traditional family exponents, mentioned upon questioning that her grandfather had taken women’s parts and that until the ‘Thirties women were not permitted to perform Kunqu. To the query regarding women’s movements and bound feet, she responded that women were supposed to move “like gentle breezes.” Costuming was rich, the girls were beautiful, and one enjoyed a glimpse into Ching Dynasty affluent entertainment this side of Raise the Red Lantern.

Sharlyn Sawyer’s efforts to present Persian dance tradition go back two decades and have segued into the Silk Route traditions as historical forces have created republics out of former Soviet territory and the Afghanistan disruptions have brought refugee to the US. Her own depictions based on Persian miniatures are now augmented by an ensemble including dances from the Pamir mountains where devoted students travel to study. Floor length garments, modesty veils, jingling jewelry and elegant shoulder-torso manipulation are standard to music playing on drums and with wind instruments.

Alseny Soumah was backed by master native Guinean musicians, five as I remember, drummers and a flutist. His presence is engaging, his energy prodigious and his elevation phenomenal: waist high in most instances. His dancing shares the communal nature enjoyed between musicians and dancers in flamenco, and most Indian classical dance forms with comraderie a high component. Alseny breaks Western assumptions of aesthetic distance, crossing the conventional stage limit, trying to elicit a more familiar call-and-response enjoyed amongst African audiences.

Hearan Chung’s story, relating to the mudong or shaman tradition featuring herself and two other professional Korean dancers resident in the area, is based on Korean folklore and superstition: how to set a spirit at peace who haunts the kitchen and a straw home shrine. Drawing from her knowledge of the traditional forms in traditional garments of exclamatory scarlet with regulation Shaman hat and bell instrument, the trio presided over the shrine and a huge ceramic kimchee jar to exorcise the spirit.

Vishnu Tattva Das explained the relation of the Gita Govinda’s story of Radha and Krishna to the Jugganath Temple at Puri, the maharis who preside in the temple’s sanctuary and the gotapuas (young boys) who perform women’s roles outside the temple. He explained the mixture of masculine and feminine styles, based on the broad second demi-plie (masculine) and the tribangha, three-angled posture (feminine). Das, a disciple of the late Kelu Cheran Mohapatra, performed a dance where Radha asks Krishna to dress and adorn her following their night together to allay suspicion relating to her appearance.

Luis Valverde, a researcher par excellence, mentioned certain areas of Peru possesses 6000 different folk dances still being performed, while other areas have seen the native traditions decimated by contemporary global cultural practices. He performed a solo Zapateo, reinforcing the delight and style seen with Peru Negro; lots of rhythmic heel, thigh and foot slaps. One of the dances featured Valverde in hat and poncho as a pink-ruffled woman danced bare foot, a phenomenon provoking queries during the end conversations. A final quartet employed four dancers all arrayed in black with elaborate gold figures on short skirts, tunics, trousers and boots, an intriguing blend of formal patterns and much shoulder shimmies.

Melody Takata performed a handsome Fujima style odori followed by commentary as she ceremoniously removed the numerous layers required of classical odori, explaining as she disrobed to be prepared to provide us with a taiko demonstration. Her effective transition, comments elegantly phrased and skills with the drum were extremely impressive.

Colette Marie Eloi has delved deeply into the lore of the African Diaspora, choosing to emphasize the contribution of Haiti to the liberation of South America. As the first Caribbean country to liberate itself from foreign domination, Bolivar, it seems, engaged Haitian forces to help liberate Venezuela, and where the orange and green appear in Latin American flags, those countries acknowledge their debt to Haiti’s example. Tt seems doubly and tragic Haiti’s situation should now be so dire.

This demonstration featured a variety of deities from the Haitian religious practices and some spectacular percussive and rhythmic dancing.

In the various comments before the reception, one observation made was that the common thread through most dances was the drum. Anthony Shay, founder of the Aman Folk Ensemble,and in 1977 the AVAZ International Dance Theatre, a tireless exponent of traditional dances, made a passionate declaration that it is crucial these forms be presented and funded at the same level as classical ballet. Ranee Ramaswamy, head of the Ragamala Music and Dance Theatre in Minneapolis, remarked she hoped the workshop fostered collaborations between the artists of like traditions. Charya Burt and Vishnu Tattva Das are now discussing mutual poetic traditions which will lend cogency to the gestural practices of Cambodian and Odissi dances. Such pairing will inevitably broaden both audiences and knowledge; equal funding with classical dance awaits a new generation to accomplish.