The Spectrum Dance Theater visited Western, and the piece they performed will not soon be forgotten
By Hailey Murphy
The Western Dance Department got a special visit last week from contemporary dance company, Spectrum Dance Theater.
Spectrum Dance Theater is a Seattle-based dance company founded in 1982. Since coming under the leadership of artistic director Donald Byrd in 2002, the company has flourished, gaining attention on the national level.
It’s always been the mission of SDT to challenge its audience. They strive to invoke emotion, thought and discussion with their work. Using movement, music and spoken word, their performances comment on important issues the country is facing.
“My ideal audience leans into uncomfortability,” Byrd said.
Western was fortunate enough to work with Spectrum Dance Theater and get a taste of their creative process. Company dancers came to contemporary classes to teach Byrd’s unique style. Dance students also had the pleasure of watching the company’s rehearsals in action.
The highlight of the visit, however, was the lecture demonstration held on Tuesday night. The event was free and open to the public, drawing members from all over the community. The event included an excerpt from SHOT, a piece about the police shooting of unarmed black man Keith Lamont Scott. The event also included a Q&A with the company and audience.
Byrd’s perspective on SHOT was particularly intriguing. When Byrd saw the video of Keith Lamont Scott’s death, he says it’s wasn’t the shooting itself that stayed with him. What stayed with him was the voice of Reykia Scott, Keith’s wife.
Reykia Scott recorded the shooting. In the video, you can hear her speaking to the cops:
Don’t shoot him. Don’t shoot him. He has no weapon. He has no weapon. Don’t shoot him. Don’t shoot him. Don’t shoot him. He didn’t do anything. He doesn’t have a gun.
She tells the police officers that her husband has a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and that he’s just taken his medicine. She begs her husband to get out of his car, all the while telling the cops surrounding the vehicle: Don’t you do it.
Then the shots are fired. Reykia yells out:
Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? He better not be fucking dead. He better not be fucking dead, I know that fucking much.
The fear in Reykia’s voice made Byrd realize something. In his past projects, he’s acknowledged racial stereotypes, racial profiling and police shootings. What he had never thought of, however, was the lingering effect on the victim’s families.
“What we forget is that they were people. People loved them. They had a mother, a father, brothers and sisters,” Byrd said.
This realization led to the creation of SHOT. The choreography centers around Reykia Scott, played by company dancer Nia-Amina Minor. She yelled out to the audience, just as Reykia yelled out to the police.
Don’t shoot him!
The piece went on to explore the shock in the aftermath of the shooting, the lingering grief and the ways in which police shootings affect everyone.
SHOT’s emotional power became evident as the performance came to an end. During the Q&A, audience members thanked Byrd for his work. Many professed the need for audiences across the country to see it, while others were led to tears.
Attendees then got a peek into the creative process behind the choreography. The company dancers were told to choose five lines that Reykia said, then make a gesture for each of those lines. Then those gestures were manipulated in various ways. For example, they were transferred into the legs, put on the floor or rearranged.
The gestures were fairly abstract. During the performance, you wouldn’t have known that the movement corresponded to the audio. However, the feeling was present, and it was certainly powerful.
Additionally, the dancers talked about their experience working on a piece with such presence and emotional weight.
“It’s not easy. You have to do your own emotional processing to deliver it properly to an audience, who will then have to do their own emotional processing,” Robert Moore, who portrayed Keith Lamont Scott, said.
Byrd believes that dance, in this sense, is a particularly powerful tool. He believes it forces people to process the issue, which is something words often fail to do.
When you’re speaking to someone, particularly on an uncomfortable issue in which you disagree, there are usually barriers. People typically stop listening as soon as you challenge their ideals. Movement, on the other hand, forces people to listen.
“Dance has the capacity to get past the barriers we put up,” Byrd said . “Dance gets in before you have time to put your walls down… It bypasses your head and gets to the feeling, then the head comes in later.”
For this reason, getting that emotional feeling across is particularly important to SDT. But in order to do so, they must be genuine. They have to commit to the piece, or the audience won’t believe in their message.
“A piece like this demands authenticity from the dancers,” Byrd said.
The performers had no problem committing in the Performing Arts Center that night. The message got across, loud and clear. That performance, along with the rest of the week’s teachings, won’t soon be forgotten.
“The dance program is thrilled to offer this opportunity to our majors and the larger campus community,” said dance professor Susan Haines. “Spectrum Dance Theater and Donald Byrd create a powerful mix of art and social justice to help bring awareness to important issues.”