Donald McKayle: I’ve Known Rivers (2005) & Angelitos Negros - Excerpted from Songs of The Disinherited (1972)

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

-Langston Hughes

I’ve Known Rivers (2005)

Choreography: Donald McKayle

Performer: Stephanie Powell

Music: Margaret Bonds

Singer: Darryl Taylor

Piano: Maria Corley

Poem: Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Costume: Melanie Watnik

Angelitos Negros - Excerpted from Songs of The Disinherited (1972)

Choreography: Donald McKayle

Performer: Stephanie Powell

Music: Phil Moore Jr., Manuel Álvarez Maciste, Richie Havens

Lyrics from the poem: Andres Eloy Blanco

Costume: Lea Vivante

Lighting: Kenneth Keith

Piano and Vocals: Roberta Flack

Songs of The Disinherited (1972) is one of Donald McKayle's heritage masterworks. "It examines and speaks deeply of varied aspects of the Black Diaspora in the New World. The third movement, Angelitos Negros is a portrait of black courage, dignity and beauty of a woman in grief of loss proudly pleading and challenging the painters of her country with lyrics by Andres Eloy Blanco, “...Every time you paint a church you paint beautiful little angels, but never have you remembered to paint a black angel...we also go to Heaven... paint me a black angel!' “ - Donald McKayle

Donald McKayle, American; American male artist of all colors; American male artist of all colors who danced like the gods; American male artist of all colors who danced like the gods during the course of his entire performing career, inspiring and igniting the paths of young impressionable people of all colors, like myself, in spite of the fact it was during a period in our society when such effrontery was not condoned – his totally committed physicality and freedom in the sharing of his gifts of creating beauty has challenged and inspired all who were fortunate enough to have worked with/for him (Robbins, Ailey, Cosby, Jamison, Landsbury, Nahat, Hinkson, Taliaferro, Vivante, Barnett, de Lavallade, Maxwell, Davis, Finsilver), or been an audience experiencing his work. We have been moved by this impassioned poet of motion, choreographer, and director who boldly expressed to us his ideas and beliefs about our world through works of theater that spoke loudly to the human process; works of, by, and for people viewed by thousands in diverse performance arenas from Broadway, Hollywood, concert stages, television, dance studios, and college campuses worldwide. This artist's work speaks to the very reason for theater in general, dance; specifically - one viewing of his masterwork Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder tells us that. Not to understand the sentient nature of human kind, after experiencing any of his work, has proved for decades to be impossible for most so affected from here at home to beyond the Urals of Russia.

Donald McKayle was the iconic American dance theater artist who, being of all colors, worked in tireless and innovative ways in the development of his art, and who remained committed to teaching the minds as well as the bodies of all young people on their journeys to their personal thresholds. Donald McKayle, unlike many artist honorees whose names are etched on national selective walls, and who, ironically, had the good fortune of having been mentored by McKayle, has now joined a uniquely indiscriminate roster of honored and beloved artists whose names, too, like Keats, “... writ in water” Donald McKayle's work lives on; and he is alive inside them.

Clay Taliaferro, Dance Artist & Professor Emeritus - Duke University

For full bio of Donald Mckayle please visit http://www.donaldmckayle.com/

© THE DONALD McKAYLE LEGACY

Erick Hawkins: Cantilever (1963)

Choreography:  Erick Hawkins

Artistic Director/Reconstruction: Katherine Duke

Dancers: Kristina Berger, Jacquelyne Boe, Jeff Lyon, Wendell Cooper

Music: Cantilever by Lucia Dlugoszewski

Musician: David Taylor, Nathan Botts, Marshall Coid, Dov Manski, Michiyo Suzuki, Bill Trigg

Originally dedicated to American architect Frederick Kiesler, Lucia Dlugoszewski wrote: “This is a New York dance, or it could be a San Francisco dance when you climb to the top of a brand new building and look out for miles. It is dedicated to the love of American architects who are building the exciting new American cities. In the music for Cantilever each dance gesture creates a tiny length of time that becomes a separate little piece of music resting on a consonant or ‘eradiant’ ground that unifies the work. At one point these little pieces take the form of isolated melodies, ending with only the thick eradiant ground of solid sound.” –Feb., 1966, Hunter College Playhouse, New York, NY.

Erick Hawkins (1909-1994) was a true dance radical. Born in Trinidad, Colorado he experienced the spiritual border where the Plains Indians met the Pueblo Indians. Hawkins entered Harvard at the age of 15 earning a degree in Greek civilization. He then began studying dance with German expressionist Harald Kreutzberg. The first American student to enroll at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in 1934, Hawkins danced in Balanchine's Serenade and taught at Balanchine's school. In 1936 he choreographed his first work Showpiece for Lincoln Kirsten's Ballet Caravan, now New York City Ballet, in which his aesthetic of a non-abstract poetic idiom was already evident. Ballet Caravan debuted at Bennington College in 1936 along with the modern dance company of Martha Graham.

Hawkins became the first male dancer to join Graham's troupe in 1938. For Graham he created unique male roles generating a new passionate image of masculinity in American modern dance. Hawkins began his own school and company in 1951 creat ing a stunning, quintessentially American repertoire. As an unprecedented collaborator with contemporary artists, sculptors, and designers, Hawkins has worked with Isamu Noguchi, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Stanley Boxer, Ralph Lee, Robert Motherwell, and most notably sculptor Ralph Dorazio. Hawkins has also commissioned many distinguished American composers among them are Virgil Thompson, Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison, David Diamond, Wallingford Riegger, Ross Lee Finney, Dorrance Stalvey, Micho Mamiya, and Ge Gan-ru. His most significant collaboration began in 1953 with composer Lucia Dlugoszewski.

Hawkins has been honored with a Mellon Foundation Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Dance Magazine Award, Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Western Michigan University, The Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for his lifetime achievement in modern dance, The Master Teacher/ Mentors Grant from Jane Alexander and Sali Ann Kriegsman of the NEA, and the National Initiative to Preserve American Dance underwritten by the Pew Charitable Trusts to document his exclusive technique. He received the President's Medal for the Arts at the White House in 1994. In the President's words: "For his boldness and talent he commands a legendary place in the American Modern Dance heritage...truly a pioneer."

More performances to come.
See the full lineup for 10 Years Over 10 Weeks