“Take Off” was the star attraction of a performance by the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company at this summer’s American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C. Created in 1984, the piece was revived as part of ADF’s African-American project, which is reconstructing and touring great black works in American modern dance. So far, 16 dances have been reconstructed, including such classics as Talley Beatty’s “Mourner’s Bench” (1947) and Donald McKayle’s “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder” (1959), set to blues and prison songs, portraying a chain gang. “Communication used to be a mandate of modern dance,” says McKayle, 63. “You were not supposed to get out there and be irrelevant.”
But despite its roots in issues of race, McIntyre’s “Take Off” defies easy racial categorization. Brought up in Cleveland, she studied chiefly with artists in the white mainstream. “It’s been tough, sometimes people haven’t known where to place my work,” says McIntyre, 46. “I don’t come out of ‘school of Katherine Dunham’ or ‘school of Alvin Ailey.’ Ailey, MeKayle–they’re my inspiration, they’re brilliant, but they weren’t my teachers. Paul Taylor is probably why 1 started a company. I thought, that’s what I’m meant to do -daring work.”
In “Take Off,” the music by jazz composer Lawrence (Butch) Morris and the spare, vivid movement style cast a tale in universal terms. In one scene, a man runs in place, sweating but getting nowhere, until a group comes up and tramples him. As he retreats, they gaze after him and graciously applaud. It’s a chilling image of oppression, all the more so for its stark economy.
At the festival, McIntyre also offered work by Helen Tamiris, famous in the ’30s for her dances set to Negro spirituals and protest songs. Tamiris was white. Can it possibly be correct for a black dancer to recreate the work of a white choreographer on black themes? “It’s more politically sensitive today,” admits McIntyre. “What matters is where the person’s heart is. If you have a burning desire to express this music, go for it. Then you’ll touch the hearts of people who see it.” Touching the heart was Tamiris’s specialty–and it’s McIntyre’s.
