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Dance company never stands still
Stamina is essential for Philadanco dancers, not only because their profession demands it; they whirl throughout the country on tour for months each year.
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2002
The Philadanco troupe was for black dancers in the Philadelphia area who didn’t want to go to New York to study yet felt their options were limited closer to home.
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Philadanco -- short for Philadelphia Dance Company -- is a barnstorming troupe that is out on the road as much as 40 weeks a year. When founder and executive-artistic director Joan Myers Brown is reached at 6:30 in the morning at a Holiday Inn in Chico, Calif., she is already up and preparing to shepherd her 15 dancers on to the next stop.
"We've got three dates in California, then it's on to St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and that's as far ahead as I'm thinking right now," she said.
Modern dance has always been an itinerant art form, and in the case of Philadanco, one of the country's leading black dance companies, the touring influences the staging of a work.
"Since we travel so much I try to travel with little or no props," said Brown, who founded the company 32 years ago. "Most of my emphasis onstage is on the dancers and lighting. I did a multimedia piece once, and it just got to be so expensive to carry it around.
"I think what works with my company are the dancers. We've been very successful with little or no frills."
Two of the dances on Friday's program at Mahaffey Theater are from Messages from the Heart, a full-evening work Philadanco commissioned last year from four women choreographers. They are My Science by Bebe Miller and Hand Singing Song by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. But the two other dances from Messages -- by Eva Gholson and Elisa Monte -- are not being performed because they still need work.
"I always say it's like baking a cake; you're not sure how it's going to turn out till you get the end product," Brown said. "Two of the pieces I thought were fine, and two of the pieces I thought needed work. I like to give choreographers an opportunity to come back and revisit their work rather than discard it, especially if you paid a lot of money for it."
Brown thinks it's important that a choreographer's work not necessarily end with the premiere. Too many dances are performed once and never seen again.
"Unfortunately for artists, especially dance creators, their premieres always have to be a success," she said. "I think the opportunity to fail some time is an addition to their growth. Especially if they get an opportunity to revisit it."
Also on Friday's program are Exotica by Ron K. Brown (not related to Joan Myers Brown) and Enemy Behind the Gates by Christopher Huggins.
Philadanco, which started as an extension of Brown's dance school in Philadelphia, has sometimes been called the farm team of the country's best-known black dance company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Five Philadanco alumni are now with Ailey (which performs at Ruth Eckerd Hall Wednesday and March 7).
Brown doesn't disguise her annoyance at her company and others such as Dayton (Ohio) Contemporary Dance Company and Dallas Black Dance being overshadowed by the larger African-American companies.
"We are almost afterthoughts," she said. "After presenters can't get Ailey, and after they can't get Dance Theatre of Harlem, they'll say, who else is out there? Because they're only going to present one black company on a series. You'll never see a dance series where they have more than one black company on it."
Ailey does have something of a corner on the market for high-profile black modern dance, and it is justly praised for its excellent dancers. But the company is not without critics, including Brown, who thinks it no longer nurtures young dancers as carefully as in the past.
"Presenters like Ailey because Ailey is a moneymaker," she said. "Ailey is like Coca-Cola. Everybody has heard of Ailey, so everybody goes to see them. Presenters present Ailey because they know the bottom line is what's important."
When Brown founded Philadanco, she did so because her students needed a way to pursue professional careers. They didn't want to leave Philadelphia for New York City, the traditional center for aspiring dancers, but didn't feel as if they were treated right at the city's major company, Pennsylvania Ballet.
"Pennsylvania Ballet is mainly the reason I have a company now," she said. "Today, 32 years later, they still have only two black dancers, one woman and one man, in a corps of 32. Most of the major companies still have only one or two, but in a city like Philadelphia where the population is 60 percent black, surely they could do better. The access still isn't equal."
Philadanco has contributed to a thriving dance scene in Philadelphia, which has 46 dance companies, according to Brown, as well as strong dance programs at Temple University and the University of the Arts. Brown's company includes dancers from Germany, Ethiopia and the Philippines, as well as the United States. Not all company members are black.
"Now when I hold an audition, 180 kids show up, and 100 of them are nonblack," she said. "There are so many dancers out there with no jobs."
Preview
Philadanco performs at 8 p.m. Friday at Mahaffey Theater. Tickets: $23-$30. (727) 892-5767.
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