| Akron Beacon Journal
Playhouse Square is offering Step Afrika!’s dramatic streaming event “STONO,” featuring the story of African freedom fighters from more than 200 years ago, free on demand through Feb. 14.
“STONO” honors the spirit of resistance and activism stemming from a historic slave rebellion in 1739. On Sept. 9 of that year, the largest insurrection of enslaved Africans in North America began in South Carolina on the banks of the Stono River.
Twenty Africans marched toward a promised freedom in then-Spanish Florida, waving flags, beating drums and shouting ‘”liberty.” The Stono Rebellion was suppressed but this little-known event in American history forever changed African American life and culture, Step Afrika! Founder and Executive C. Brian Williams said in his introduction.
When Africans lost the right to use their drums through the Negro Act of 1740, they used their bodies as percussive instruments in response. This led to the art forms of the ring shout, tap, hambone and stepping.
Those art forms are used by Step Afrika! of Washington, D.C., the first professional dance company in the world dedicated to the tradition of stepping. The company, founded in 1994 as an exchange program with the Soweto Dance Theatre of Johannesburg, uses stepping as a motivational tool for young people in its education programs.
The streaming performance of “STONO,” presented by University Hospitals, runs 35 minutes and is for all ages. This Step Afrika! work is filmed in mostly outdoor settings.
Register at https://bit.ly/2MtdPZL. For more information, call 216-241-6000.
Step Afrika!, which tours the world as a cultural ambassador, recently performed in the “We Are One” celebration of the Black community and African Diaspora that streamed on President Joe Biden’s inauguration night. See the very cool performance, filmed on the grounds of the Jefferson Memorial, at https://tinyurl.com/yyu8gcr6 (starting at 1:13).
Tuesday Musical
Ohio high school and college students seeking advice on how to become a professional musician, what auditions are like and how social media can help with career success are invited to the free webinar “Entry Points to Music Careers” at 2 p.m. Feb. 17.
Tuesday Musical and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education will offer the one-hour Zoom webinar, featuring three panelists from Sphinx Virtuosi, a barrier-breaking chamber orchestra of Black and Latinx classical soloists that is scheduled to perform in Akron on May 26.
Cassandra Hanna of Akron Public Schools’ Firestone College and Career Academy will moderate. Sphinx panelists will be violinists Alex Gonzalez and Allison Lovera and violist Bill Neri. Neri is also project manager for the National Alliance for Audition Support, an initiative to increase diversity in American orchestras.
Individuals and classes can register for the webinar at www.tuesdaymusical.org/musician-webinar. For more information, contact info@tuesdaymusical.org.
The webinar is part of Tuesday Musical’s 2021 activities featuring Sphinx, a Detroit-based national organization dedicated to diversity in the arts. Support for Tuesday Musical’s Sphinx activities comes from the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, the Ohio Arts Council and the Crane Group.
DanceCleveland
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE will give a special live performance in celebration of its 35th anniversary at 8 p.m. Feb. 18, streamed from the Joyce Theater in New York. The program was developed through a new partnership among DanceCleveland, Cuyahoga Community College, Northrop at the University of Minnesota and the Joyce Theater.
The company’s original live performance with DanceCleveland, which had been scheduled for Saturday at the Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square, was canceled due to the pandemic.
“Just when COVID made everything seem impossible, new things became possible. Bubble residences have provided the opportunity for Ronald K. Brown and his dancers to be able to rehearse, technology has created opportunities to live stream, and a whole host of specialized talent has risen up to be able to produce this performance. It also opened the door for four arts presenters in three different states to join together for the first time to bring this all about,” Pam Young of DanceCleveland said in a news release.
The company will perform some of its most iconic pieces, including the full company work “Mercy” and a solo from “Grace,” Brown’s breakout piece performed first by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 20 years ago.
EVIDENCE, founded by Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, N.Y., integrates traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word. The company’s mission is to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance, music, history and tradition.
Other works on the upcoming program will be “For You,” “She Is Here,” the “Paly y Machete” solo from “One Shot,” and “March.”
Cost is $25 per household. See https://tinyurl.com/y2jths5x/. The recording of the live performance will be available to view on demand through 11:59 p.m. March 4.
Several days of free activities will lead up to the Feb. 18 performance. Registration is required at www.DANCECleveland.org/events.
At 8 p.m. Feb. 15, a panel discussion with Brown, “Let’s Say Grace And Talk About It,” will stream online. The conversation will explore the aesthetic forms of grace as a way of artistic expression and the human forms of grace as healing and empowerment.
A free community dance class with Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE will stream at 7 p.m. Feb. 16. The class, for dancers of all ages and backgrounds, will feature simplified steps from Brown’s blended style of contemporary, African and Caribbean dance styles.
At 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17, dance lovers can see a screening of the previously recorded “Grace,” Brown’s famous, spiritually charged masterpiece. A 30-minute Q&A session with Brown and dancer Vie Boheme will follow.
‘Elliot & Me’
Chagrin Valley Little Theatre will stream the new musical comedy “Elliot & Me” from 6 p.m. Feb. 18 through midnight Feb. 21 at cvlt.org. Admission is $20 to see this professional regional theater production, staged and recorded at Hudson Theatre Works in Weehawken, New Jersey.
Based on the true story of the Willensky brothers, the two-man show centers on songwriter Elliot and younger brother Steven as they prepare to pitch their original two-man show to legendary Broadway producer Max Stone. The musical features a book by Steven Willensky and Scott Coulter and music by Elliot Willensky, who wrote Michael Jackson’s first solo hit “Got to Be There” in 1971.
Les Delices
Les Delices will premiere its program “Games & Grounds” Feb. 18, a concert available on demand through March 1 that will feature everything from Baroque dance to musical versions of Aesop’s fables.
Featured soprano and dancer Elena Mullins will open and close the program, performing 17th century choreography in a chaconne from Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera “Phaëton” as well as her original choreography for Jean-Féry Rebel’s showpiece “Caractères de la danse.”
Les Delice’s Julie Andrijeski, a longtime performer and teacher of both violin and Baroque dance, described dance as a visual representation of the musical form, or “music in 3-D.”
Mullins discovered baroque dance as a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, where she became immersed in Andrijeski’s baroque dance class.
“The real challenge of baroque dance is to tell a story and draw your audience into the experience,” Mullins said in a news release.
She said creating original choreography for “Caractères de la danse” was challenging and gratifying: “The real fun of the ‘Caractères’ is the invitation to fully develop each short dance movement to have its own unique feel, its own unique sense of physicality. You have to switch characters on a dime, which is really challenging, and only really possible when the musicians are working equally hard to convey those characters.”
For tickets to the online concert, which are $20 or $8 for students, see https://tinyurl.com/y5sosyew.
Cleveland Ballet auditions
The School of Cleveland Ballet is accepting audition submissions for its 2021 Summer Intensive that will run July 6 through Aug. 7. Classes will be 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday with the exception of the first week beginning on Tuesday, July 6th, and the final presentation on Saturday, August 7th.
Tuition is $810 to $1,350, depending on age and level placement. Housing is not included in the tuition price.
There is no audition fee this year. Audition requirements include a resume/CV, five required ballet photographs and video of the auditioner in class. See https://clevelandballet.org/summer-intensive-2021 for specifics on photo and video requirements.
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
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