An episode from The Alabama Experience documentary series
This program might be useful in classes studying dance, minority concerns, and classical arts. It would also be appropriate for Black History Month activities.
Program length: 26:40. This program may also be shown in two shorter segments. Stop the tape at 12:21 when you hear "...they were interested in having one black person in there."
This program was produced by Dwight Cammeron.
Dyann Robinson performed two seasons with the American Ballet Theater and taught at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Dance Theatre of Boston. She danced on Broadway in Bubblin' Brown Sugar. And yet in 1980 she returned home to Tuskegee, Alabama, to help people of all ages there experience dance and the arts.
Ms. Robinson grew up in Tuskegee holding to a most unusual dream: she wanted to become a ballerina. She had no role model. There were no black ballerinas that she knew of.
She did have a mentor, though--Jessie Gibson, a dedicated dance teacher--and she grew up in a town that allowed its black residents to believe that they could do anything they wanted.
She left home in 1966 to study dance at Butler University in Indiana and then began a distinguished professional career that saw her perform on some of the nation's most famous stages.
"Dance of Identity: The Choreography of Dyann Robinson" features Ms. Robinson giving lessons and teaching at Auburn University. The program also shows her dancing in works that she choreographed.
It's unusual to see a black ballerina teaching classical dance to a group of children in a rural Alabama town. As Ms. Robinson says, though, "classical art does not belong to any one racial group."
aspiration: to seek or strive for a particular goal.
latitude: freedom of action or choice.
mentor: a guide or trusted teacher who takes a special interest in a student.
pinnacle: the highest point of achievement or success.
1. Ask students to discuss what they think ballerinas look like. (Probably white, and probably small. Dyann Robinson defies both of these stereotypes.)
2. Have the class read the poem "Black Like Me" by Langston Hughes.
3. Ask if they have a mentor or know of mentors in the community.
1. Go over the glossary words and talk about how they were used in the program. What were Ms. Robinson's aspirations? How did growing up in Tuskegee giver her latitude that she might not have had elsewhere? Who was her mentor? What was the pinnacle of her professional career?
2. Discuss Ms. Robinson's relationship with her mentor, Jesse Gibson. Do your students have mentors? Can they be mentors? How is a mentor different from a teacher?
3. Why was Tuskegee different from other small towns in Alabama? (It was the home of Tuskegee University and allowed its black residents opportunities they could not find elsewhere. There were many black professionals working there as professors, doctors, and administrators.) Why was this atmosphere important to Ms. Robinson? (She had the feeling she could act on any of her aspirations.)
4. Why is it ironic now that Ms. Robinson teaches at Auburn? (Blacks were not allowed to attend there when she graduated from college in 1966.)
5. Ms. Robinson says she wants to talk about African-American people, to show the beauty of what they can do in the arts. Ask your students to think of others who have made contributions in this field. (They'll probably think of popular entertainers. You can include names of many musicians, especially jazz artists. You can explain that the late William Dawson, a respected classical composer, taught at Tuskegee University. He created elaborate, stirring arrangements of the spirituals that slaves had sung in the fields.)
"Black Dance in America: A History Through Its People," 1990, by James Haskins, published by T.Y. Crowell.
"Breakout: Profiles in African Rhythm," 1992, by Gary Stewart, University of Chicago Press.
"Black Dance: From 1619 to Today," by Lynne Fauley Emery, Princeton Book Co.
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