Bending the Form: Debbie Allen and a Dream of Black Dance
One thing I looked forward to more than anything in high school were the seasonal dance concerts. The concerts were always held on Fridays during the last two or three hours of the day, so you got to miss class and see your friends all dressed up and prancing around the auditorium. Every year the concert would begin the same. The dance instructor, Ms. Ellis, would glide onto stage welcoming the audience of rowdy teens in a tone as stern as it was elegant. Ms. Ellis would lay out very specific instructions for appreciating the art we were about to experience. You were not to applaud or make noise of any kind during the performance. As audience members we were only allowed a light round of applause at the end of a piece, with hoots and hollers held to a minimum. She emphasized the work that went into every minute of dance we were about to witness, and she closed her welcome with a severe warning: if you disrespect this auditorium, these dancers, or stepped out of line in anyway she would have no problem cancelling the entire concert.
Now this might sound intense, it was, but being the goody-two-shoes I was I made sure to be quiet. In those two hours I saw young Black bodies like mine moving in ways and to music I had never imagined. I have pretty strong opinions about most art (film, music, photography) but dance has always been one of those things I find so elusive. I’m so in awe most times I have no time for analysis or critique, just appreciation. So it was more than refreshing and a bit surprising when my fiancé forced me to watch the new Netflix documentary about Debbie Allen’s dance academy. The surprise being that the same intensity and ferocious attention to detail that I had grown accustomed to during high school was fully embodied in Debbie Allen every moment she was on screen. It was so strange to see a woman so accomplished, who to this day has a successful career directing television, confront her students with the same energy as an overworked Detroit public school teacher like Ms. Ellis.
“It’s hard when the craft that chose you was not made in your image”
Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker is a recent Netflix documentary chronicling the Debbie Allen Dance Academy’s largest annual production and the students that make it possible. The documentary isn’t breaking any formal boundaries, giving us the basic count down of weeks until the big show. It does inject snippets of Allen’s and her student’s lives throughout and its in those moments the film soars. Like Black people that love any classical form of art, there is the inherent tension in our embrace of mediums that were created for traditionally white audiences. Or as Kylie Jefferson, a former student at DADA, put it “it’s hard when the craft that chose you was not made in your image”. For the young women, men, and for Allen herself, no matter how many times the traditional dance establishment rejected them they continued on, compelled by their love of the form.
Allen’s academy, and honestly her entire career, seems to be an attempt to bend that form towards Blackness, hence the Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. That mission is on full display throughout the film, as the movie captures Allen applying the traditional rigor and standards of dance companies to this children’s production. But the tension is also present throughout. In one scene the white instructor Allen has on staff takes issue with a modified ballet dance style Allen has the students doing. Allen stands firm in her direction but you are constantly aware that what Allen is creating is a constant negotiation between tradition and Blackness.
Where the real fireworks fly however are in the rehearsal scenes, which constitute most of the film. It’s these scenes where Allen’s dedication to these students take me aback. You can see how much she cares, yelling at them to take things from the top, staying for long rehearsals, and even stepping in to dance herself. There are multiple scenes with Allen squatting, low to the ground, looking dead into the eyes of a five year old Black girl asking her if she’s ready for this journey. And while some of these students come from the households with estates and with last names like Carter, the documentary goes out of its way to highlight the more than 75% of students who are there on scholarship. Negotiating the terms and expression of art will be a constant battle but one thing is settled, Allen has created a community institution in South LA that will be drawing in goody-two-shoes and not so goody-two-shoes kids for years to come. I think this is definitely worth your time, watch this movie!
Notable Movies Watched this November:
You Got Served (2004) - Another gem of the 2000’s, but I won’t lie outside of the dancing this was pretty rough. Acting was not great, I’m more than sure it was shot on an early Nokia, and despite all that it remains a classic.
Mangrove (2020) - I think Steve McQueen is moving in his purpose and it is a wonder to behold the art that comes from that. I hope all artist can learn to trust themselves this much with their stories.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) - Wholesome, wholesome, wholesome. Probably has some deeper things going on under the surface but I think it does a great job of celebrating all those who feel outside the American white mainstream culture.
Citizen Kane (1941) - I’ve seen so many clips of this in school but avoided watching it at all cost, just too much pressure. But who would’ve known, its good, really good, basically a classic lol.
Influenza (2004) - What if Parasite was shorter and somehow better? Watch this short and you’ll know that Bong Joon-Ho is making the same movie over and over again and I’m not mad about it.
Notable Books read in November:
Beautiful Catastrophe (2005) by Bruce Gilden - This man is fearless. Some of the most uncomfortable street portraits you’ll ever see but also the most miraculous. Still figuring out how I feel about this type of surprise-attack street photography but these photos are a site to behold.
A Promised Land (2020) by Barack Obama - I haven’t finished this book, not sure I will, but my only hope is that we can start to have the larger and more critical conversation around Obama in the next decade.
Notable Albums Listened to in November:
Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) (2020) by Kali Uchis - Gorgeousness beamed into your ears, I think this has the most Spanish lyrics of any Kali project thus far and she is definitely in her element.
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eric
