Souls of Our Feet: People of Color Dance Festival at LIU’s Kumble Theater

Souls of Our Feet: People of Color Dance Festival, a two-day dance festival organized by the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center, enters its second day of performances 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Kumble Theater at Long Island University Brooklyn.

This year, Alex Smith Jr., Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center’s executive chairman, and Walter Rutledge, its artistic adviser, gave choreographers guidelines for creating their pieces. They asked Nijawwon K. Matthews, Lakai Worrell and Tommie-Waheed Evans, whose works were shown last night, to look to African American visual artists for inspiration. They asked Roger C. Jeffrey, Malcolm J. Low and Gierre Godley — the more experienced trio of choreographers — to engage texts by African American writers who also identify as gay or same-gender loving.

Smith, Jr. and Rutledge spoke with us this week about the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center’s mission of supporting choreographers of color, how the pair designed this year’s festival, and how dance can change society’s views of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Check out our condensed conversation below.

How would you describe what audiences will see at Souls of Our Feet?

Rutledge: We have everything from dance theater to abstract narrative, to pure abstract works that are just movement-based.

Smith Jr.: Thelma Hill’s always been known for spanning a very wide gamut in our programming. You’re likely to see a wide variety of things when you come. You’re always going to be stimulated, [and] it’s going to be somewhat provocative at times.

How does written or spoken language affect or influence a work of choreography?

Smith Jr.: On an emotional level, I’ve always had a fascination with dance and movement, and dance and music together is very powerful for me. Now, if you add another component to it and have the dance expound on the written word, well to me that’s just like a perfect synergy.

Rutledge: These choreographers are not only inspired by the text, but they’re using some part of the text in relationship to the music. So that adds another element, because when you have music with words, words influence how you interpret the movement. All of a sudden you have something that’s a little more literal. Even if the movement’s abstract, the spoken word has put it into a very finite context.

How did you select some of the emerging choreographers in the festival?

Rutledge: Tommie-Waheed Evans works with Joan Myers Brown at Philadanco. She’s been helping him develop his choreography, and he contacted me and said that Mrs. Brown told him to call me. I went down to Philadelphia and saw some of his work, and I realized that he was somebody who should be seen in New York. And so when the opportunity presented itself this season, we asked him to come up.

Smith Jr.: A lot of choreographers, a lot of dancers who want to go on and become choreographers often pass through Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center. This is usually one of the first stops where the spotlight is shined on them. And then they go on to other venues.

How can Thelma Hill’s programming change people’s perceptions of the LGBTQ community?

Rutledge: Still in the black community, gay issues are taboo. Especially when you get to the black church, when you get to people of Caribbean descent, there is a whole stigma that still goes along with the LGBTQ community. I think that if you can make one person feel good about who they are, it spreads.

Smith Jr.: Sounds a little clichéd, [but] by beholding you become change. By becoming more familiar with something, it can begin to open your mind, it can begin to help change ideas and perspectives and make the culture, the society much more inclusive.

Tickets for tonight’s program of Souls of Our Feet: People of Color Dance Festival cost $12 for students and seniors, and $15 for everyone else. They’re available online, by calling (718) 488-1624 or at Kumble Theater’s box office between 1:00 and 7:30 p.m. Interested in writing about dance in the nabe, locals? Contact us here.