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"CRY 2" Oil, Acrylic Collage
painting, the dance and the struggle
for due recognition within the white
western context.
It is in this sense the series "Dance
Sequence" and its showing engender
the individually achieved international
recognition of both Alvin's, Hollings
worth and Ailey. But more central
than this is that the exhibit, itself,
accomplishes the mutual embracing of
artists who dared and dare to express
through art the suffering, the pain, and
the triumphs and joys of their people
to their people, even while the rest of
the world looks on in amused contempt
or pity. The achievement is deeply
religious: poetically symbolized by
another Black artist, James Baldwin,
who warns that the moment we break
faith with one another, the moment we
cease to hold each other - a light goes
"Rehearsal", Oil, Acrylic
out and the sea engulfs us.
If there is argument that the dance
is the most brilliant of the visual arts,
that it is most fleeting - transient so to
speak - is plain for all to see. The art in
dance defys exact mechanical repro
duction, as it does in painting. Klee's
"Genii: Figures From a Ballet"
demonstrates that dance translated
into painting is more than a repro
duction of movement. But rather
translated into painting, dance
"transcends the physical limitations
that govern actual dancing. By breaking
up forms, inventing others and ma
nipulating shapes and colours freely,
it captures the qualities of motion,
change and invention" by which dance,
at its best, as a graceful narrative
form "can defy physical laws and
become magic."
Spanning some 2,500 years, as far
Sketches for
"Dance Sequence" Ailey Dancers
back as the Etruscan Tomb of Lionesses,
records show painters attempting to
distill and fix the essence of the fleeting
beauty of dance. More recently,
Matisse in the most famous dancing
picture of this century, "La Danse",
Degas in "L'Etoile" showing sweat and
muscle developed into gold illusion,
and Picasso's "There Dancers" re
creating nature in new patterns
expressing the vigor, invention, color
and animation of dance are all represen
tative of modern painters inspired by
the dance.
"Will the young folks ever see
anything so charming, anything so
classic, anything like Taglioni?"
Thackeray asked in 1850. Isadora"
Duncan haunted the Louvre Greek
Sculpture, Auguste Rodin. A thought
forlorned and filled with melancholy
is that no one living could have seen
these magnificant dancers. Perhaps a
"DANCE SEQUENCE"
Ink and Oil
few may remember having seen some
old lady then long since fallen from her
high estate. The Exhibit, "Dance Se
quence", celebrating Alvin Ailey and
the American Dance Theatre insures
that young, Black folks will see some
thing so charming, something so classic,
something like Judith Jamison.
a
NCCJ President
Warns of KKK
Resurgence
Dr. David Hyatt, president of the
National Conference of Christians and
Jews recently told the organization's
National Board of Trustees of the re
surgence and the potential danger of
hate groups in America and called
upon them to help "awaken the con
science of America to its -crying human
relations needs."
Dr. David Hyatt, addressed the
trustees at the group's annual meeting
in New York City, and noted the
rise in anti-Semitic and anti-Black
incidents during 1980.
"In today's world members of the Ku
Klux Klan now wear three-piece suits
and are becoming much more media
conscious," Hyatt observed. "But they
still preach their same age-old mes
sage: hate! The modern Klan is couched
in populist rhetoric, but make no
mistake, it still comes out as anti
Black, anti-Semitic and basically sub
human."
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