Joan Myers Brown: A Movement for Five (World Premiere, Spring 2015)

Choreographer: Dawn Marie Watson

Music: A compilation of various artists

Lighting Design: Nick Kolin

Costume Design/Execution: Natasha Guruleva

Section I: The Breakdown
Dwayne Cook Jr, Joe Gonzalez, Lalah A. Hazelwood, Victor Lewis Jr, Allison MacDonald, Adryan Moorefield, Courtney Robinson, Jah’meek D. Williams

Section II: For Five
Joe Gonzalez with Dwayne Cook Jr, Victor Lewis Jr, Adryan Moorefield

Section III: Exoneration
The Cast

Inspired by the events surrounding the Central Park 5, this piece aims to uncover the structure of a community and socio-political system that failed to protect the lives of five innocent young boys living in Harlem in 1989.

“You can forgive, but you won't forget. You can’t forget what you lost. No money can ever bring that time back.” Kharey Wise (Ken Burns, David McMahon, Sarah Burns, documentary, The Central Park 5, 2012)

Dawn Marie Watson, former dancer with Danco: My piece is loosely based around the 2012 documentary The Central Park Five, (five young black men falsely accused) by filmmakers Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns. This documentary brings to light pertinent issues that are relevant even today facing our young African American men. My goal with this piece is to use a group of about 8 dancers and look at the system and community that failed these men and continues to work against young men of color. I also want to explore the emotional journey these men lived through. They have come out on the other side of broken relationships, lost childhood, false imprisonment and shattered faith. Their struggle to maintain normalcy is ongoing.

Videographer: Carmella Vassor Johnson
Video Footage: Courtesy of Philadanco!

JOAN MYERS BROWN's undisputed status as a leader in the national and international arts communities was acknowledged when she was selected by President Barack Obama to receive the 2012 National Medal of the Arts, the nation's highest civic honor for excellence in the arts. At a ceremony at the White House in July 2013, President Obama cited Ms. Brown for carving out "an artistic haven for African American dancers and choreographers to innovate, create, and share their unique visions with the national and global dance communities."

In 1970 Joan Myers Brown founded The Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO) and The Philadelphia School of Dance Arts. She serves as honorary chairperson for the International Association of Blacks in Dance (ABD), an organization she established in 1991. She also founded the International Conference of Black Dance Companies in 1988. She is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which bestowed upon her an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts; a member of the dance faculty at Howard University in Washington, DC; and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Listed in Who's Who in America as an "innovator and communicator," Ms. Brown has made significant contributions to the national and international arts communities.

She has served a broad range of regional and national organizations, including NEFA's National Dance Project, USIA, Arts America, National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Councils of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Nevada, and Ohio, the National Forum for Female Executives, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Minority Arts Resource Council, Philadelphia Mayor's Cultural Advisory Council, Philadelphia Dance Alliance, The Woman's Heritage Society, the Coalition of African American Cultural Organizations, Dance USA/Philadelphia and many other organizations. Ms. Brown's expertise and counsel have been sought such organizations as the Rockefeller Foundation's Arts & Humanities Program. She served as a trustee of the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and the Media Performing Arts Center; member of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Arts & Business Council, World Dance Alliance Americas, University City Board of Directors, Dance/USA , et al. Ms. Brown's many honors include the Dance Women, Living Legends Award, in tribute to five African-American pioneer women who founded distinguished modern dance companies with deep roots in black communities around the country. She has been honored by the Kennedy Center for African American Choreographers, and is a recipient of the Philadelphia Award and Dance/USA's Honor Award. Now in 2020, after 50 extraordinary years, Joan Myers Brown is turning over the leadership of Philadanco! to Kim Bears-Bailey.

Douglas Dunn: Near Miss & RV (Excerpt, 2004)

Near Miss

Choreography: Douglas Dunn

Music: Mozart, Bach

Costumes: Douglas Dunn & Andrew Jordan

Performers: Douglas Dunn, Jules Bakshi, Alexandra Berger, Emily Pope-Blackman, Jake Szczypek, Paul Singh, Timothy Ward

RV (Excerpt, 2004)

Choreography: Douglas Dunn

Music: Fernando Sor, Etude, Opus 35, No. 22 John Dowland, Now, O Now I Needs Must Part; François Couperin, Tierce en Taille, Élévation

Performers: Janet Charleston

Douglas Dunn, a graduate of Princeton University, has been dancing and making dances for forty-three years. In 1971, while a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and of Grand Union, he began presenting work in New York City. In 1976, he formed Douglas Dunn & Dancers and began touring the US and Europe. In 1980, the Paris Opera and the Autumn Festival invited him to set Stravinsky's Pulcinella on the Paris Opera Ballet. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in the same year. In 1998, he was awarded a New York Dance & Performance Award (Bessie) for Sustained Achievement, and in 2008 was honored by the French government as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In January 2014, at the invitation of jedediah Wheeler, Douglas Dunn & Dancers showed Aubade, a collaborative evening with Anne Waldman, Charles Atlas and Steven Taylor, at the beautiful Kasser Theater at Montclair State University. Dancer Out of Sight, a collection of Dunn's writing spanning forty years was published in 2012, available at Amazon.com. Douglas is renowned as a teacher of Technique and of Open Structures, with a long tenure at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He has a long affiliation with American Dance Guild and has participated in many festivals. He continues to make new work and to host Salon Events at the Douglas Dunn Studio in lower Manhattan. His street dance, Vain Combat, was included as part of a sculpture/dance festival in Biel, Switzerland, August 28 - 30, 2014. The Company presented a new work Aidos, at BAM Fisher, February 11 - 15, 2015. DouglasDunnDance.com

Bill Evans: Three Preludes (2009) & Colony (2001)

Three Preludes (2009)

Choreography: William (Bill) Evans

Music: George Gershwin

Costume: William (Bill) Evans In memory of my mother, Lila Snape Evans

Performer: Bill Evans

Colony (2001)

Choreography: William (Bill) Evans

Music: Tanya Gerard, Michael Kott, Jeff Sussman, Robert Thomas

Costumes: Sandra Cain

*Performers: Ryanne Currie, Mackenzie Ferraro, Abbey Hemmann, Sylvia Larraca, Devon Larcher, Megan McQuarrie, Angela Miller, Francis Isai Rivera Pacheco

*For the 2014-15 season, the members of the Bill Evans Dance Company are all dance majors in the Palladino School of Dance, Dean College, Franklin, Massachusetts

Several years ago, I had the fascinating opportunity of teaching modern dance and tap technique and composition classes to members of the Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre in Hastings, New Zealand. During the residency, the dancers took me to their hand-carved community meeting house and showed me photographs of their ancestors-Polynesian warriors with tattooed faces, in rigid poses, and Victorian British clothing.

William (Bill) Evans is currently a professor of dance and artist in residence in the Palladino School of Dance, Dean College, Franklin, MA. He is professor emeritus at the College at Brockport, SUNY and the University of New Mexico. He danced, choreographed and served as artistic coordinator with Repertory Dance Theatre, 1967 - 74. The Bill Evans Dance Company celebrated its 40th anniversary in April 2014. It has appeared in all 50 states, throughout Mexico and Canada, and in 22 other countries. He created the Evans Method of Teaching Modern Dance Technique, which is disseminated through a four-summer certification program.

He has been awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Dance Education Organization and Dance Teacher Magazine as well as ADG; a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and was named one of three favorite world tap dancers in the Dance Magazine Readers' Poll. He received the Outstanding Service Award from the National High School Dance Festival, was named National Dance Association Scholar/Artist and is one of only three honorary members of the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science. He earned BA and MFA degrees from the University of Utah and is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Cornish College of the Arts, in Seattle. His book, Reminiscences of a Dancing Man: A Photographic Journey of a Life in Dance, was published in 2005. He celebrated his 75th birthday (April 2015) with a spring/summer solo concert tour. billevansdance.org