CELEBRATION TIME The women of Muntu put their hands in the air.
Photo: Courtesy Muntu Dance Theatre
Muntu Dance Theatre’s annual summer concert has a short life span this year—one night, Saturday 11. Nevertheless, the theme of the concert is beginnings. Given the power of this group to sustain itself (it’s been going since 1972), one viewing might be all you’ll need to start your career as a lifelong fan of Muntu’s dancers and musicians. The artists honor African and African-American dance traditions while keeping up with choreographic innovations.
While the company was in the final stages of preparing for the event, we chatted with Tosha Alston, 30, a member of Muntu for seven years who has been serving as dance captain for three.
As captain, Alston teaches classes, orchestrates rehearsals and makes sure the dances are up to par. She moved to Chicago from New York for the sole purpose of dancing with Muntu, and she’s grateful to work under artistic director Amaniyea Payne, the troupe’s guiding light. “She’s such a dynamic director,” Alston says. “It’s more than a pleasure to study with her. She teaches that no matter how good a dancer you are, the most important thing is to have a strong attitude and discipline.”
When Alston was a 15-year-old dancer in Brooklyn, she encountered another compelling personality, Abdel Salaam of Forces of Nature Dance Theater. Salaam is known for developing his own dance language fusing African, modern and African-American dance styles. “I took classes with his company; he was overseeing everything,” she recalls. Salaam “makes you feel passionate [about dancing],” Alston says.
Salaam is the choreographer of Bride from the South, the company premiere in Muntu’s Saturday program. The piece tells the story of a courtship ritual in ancient Egypt where a pharaoh seeks a wife.
Bride has choreography based on an actual initiation ceremony from northern Africa. In this dance, each man must kneel and gaze down while a woman stands very near and dances in front of him. The way Alston describes it, the men’s energy is subdued by a subtle sense of female sensuality. “It’s about how things get started,” Alston says. “How people and civilizations are born.”
Speaking of getting started, when we ask Alston how things are coming along with the construction of the Muntu Performing Arts Center that broke ground on the South Side at 47th and Greenwood in 2003, she says the project just received a hefty boost of stimulus funds from the government. “We had to change contractors; we’re dealing with politics, the economy—as an artist it’s a little brain wrecking,” she says. “But with the way we reach people through our art, it is almost inevitable that the building will get built.”
Get started with Muntu in “…the Beginning” at the Harris Theater on Saturday 11.
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