Spring 2002

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DANCE IS THE FIST A Five-Colleges tribute to the great Pearl Primus

by Deborah Gorlin

“SO MUCH BEHIND THE MOVEMENT” – Pearl Primus photographed in 1985 at UMass. (photo by Steve Long) LAST FEBRUARY, DURING BLACK HISTORY month, Five College dancers performed Walking with Pearl, a dance created for them in homage to legendary dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Pearl Primus (1919-1994). For them, the experience was more than performing dance – it was movement with meaning. The performance anchored a months-long program honoring the life and work of Primus, an artist-in residence and professor of ethnic studies at the Five Colleges from 1984 to 1991. Building on the participation of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, creator of Walking with Pearl, the Five College Dance Department put together an ambitious series of events including open rehearsals, master classes, an art exhibit, panel discussions, and lecture demonstrations devoted to this distinguished, if not adequately documented, figure in American dance. Primus, whose early training was at Hunter College in New York City, was one of a pioneering generation of African American artists breaking away from European-based models. Her search for her own artistic and spiritual ancestry took her first to the South, where she lived among sharecroppers, visited black churches, and absorbed the history of slavery and racism. In Africa in the late ’40s, she studied authentic tribal dance; once, among the Watusi, she was made an honorary male so she could witness a dance forbidden to female viewers. An anthropologist as well as an artist, she transformed the material she gathered into dances which would influence scores of other artists, including Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, and Chuck Davis. The elements of Walking with Pearl derive from multiple interpreters. An original masterwork with a legacy that began in Africa, a new work riffing on the many layers of that legacy, its core is a traditional Bantu dance from Zaire, enacted every 20 years to bring the destructive forces in the community to the surface, in order to quell them and to protect the next generation. In 1984, while in residence at the Five Colleges, Primus distilled her knowledge of this dance into her own, which she entitled Bushasche (War Dance). A devout believer in dance as a tool for social justice – her master’s and Ph.D. from N.Y.U. were in dance education – Primus hoped Bushasche would be taught in American high schools. Peggy Schwartz of the UMass dance faculty, a friend, colleague, and champion of Primus and current chair of the Five College Dance Department, reconstructed Bushasche from a videotape of a 1984 performance at Amherst College, and last year, through a grant from the National College Choreography Initiative, the Five Colleges invited acclaimed dancer and choreographer Zollar to “re-imagine Bushasche and create a new work which reflects contemporary aesthetic and cultural concerns.” Based on her achievements as director of the acclaimed dance company Urban Bush Women, Zollar, who teaches at the University of Florida, was an apt choice. “I have been in awe of Ms. Primus’s legacy ever since I heard her speak years ago,” Zollar wrote. “She talked of the great legacy of African dance and how as African Americans we should continue to study it, but not at the expense of dance traditions we have evolved on American soil. My work with Urban Bush Women has been dedicated to that end.” Interest in the upcoming program was intense among Five College dancers last year. In September, more than 65 students showed up to audition for 15 available places. (Sobered by the recent terrorist attacks, the students, noted Schwartz, were unusually supportive of one another, clapping and cheering each other’s efforts.) During the desolate January break, the student dancers would rehearse four hours daily for two weeks straight. Despite diverse backgrounds, varying proficiency, and coming from different campuses, the students developed a strong group identity. At a rehearsal in February one of them brought homemade Valentines for all the others; another spoke of “feeling like family.” To a large extent, the students said, Zollar had fostered this collective spirit. She had also helped them grasp the essence of this dance, asking them to find in themselves the sources of anger and serenity, their own beliefs about war and peace. The message was timely for Justin Ternullo, a UMass freshman in dance who felt it imperative this winter to “join together . . . to get rid of this bad energy.” Melissa Ham-Ellis, a senior dance major at UMass, felt enlarged “both as a dancer and as a person” by her participation in Walking with Pearl. It introduced her to some of the history and traditions of African dance, the movements of which, she admits, were not easy for her to emulate. “It’s not in my blood or veins, but I try to get as close as I can,” said Ham-Ellis. Rachael Faulkner. a junior dance major on exchange from the University of Washington, felt her involvement as “performer, choreographer, and audience member,” radically changed her perceptions of dance. “There was so much behind the movement, showing something besides choreography,” Faulkner said. “I don’t know – I felt that Pearl was somehow coming into me, and Jawole was a conduit.” At another rehearsal in February, other students spoke of particular nature of this dance. One noted that in most choreographed works, “You are molded by the steps.” In Walking with Pearl, she could “mold” her own shapes, put more of herself into its expression. Lance McCready, a UMass graduate student in anthropology, explained his view. “Walking with Pearl is not entertainment,” said McCready. “It’s not happy or light or pretty, as most black dance is traditionally for white audiences. It’s not going to have the same look –” “– as the high kicking Rockettes!” someone interjected. McCready finished his thought: “This dance has a different intention. It is clearing a path to peace.” McCready’s sentiments echo the words of Primus herself, written for a statement in Dance Magazine in 1968 and heard in a recording played during the piece. “Dance is my medicine,” wrote Primus. “It is the scream which eases for awhile the terrible frustration common to all human beings who, because of race, creed or color, are ‘invisible.’ Dance is the fist with which I fight the sickening ignorance of prejudice. Instead of growing twisted like a gnarled tree inside myself, I am able to dance out my anger and my tears.” At the performance, the dancers embodied this credo, at once carrying out the African and American legacies of Pearl Primus and bringing their own individual histories to their movements. Resolute, wrapped within rousing drumbeats, they stomped the floor; they slashed the air with their arms. In the end, tireless warriors for justice, they stared out at the audience, fierce with peace.

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DANCE IS THE FIST

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