The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ailey company shows the power of history to inspire
Tribute to Odetta proves a crowd-pleaser in its Atlanta debut.
It’s said that Odetta, American folk singer-songwriter and activist, was so meticulous when researching traditional black prison songs that she once tried to break rocks with a sledgehammer to understand how convicts felt when singing those songs.
Born Odetta Holmes, her care in excavating emotion in these songs — often retooled for civil rights protests — earned her the distinction among many as voice of the civil rights movement.
It was fitting for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to commemorate the Civil Rights Act’s 50th anniversary in 2014 with a tribute to Holmes. Choreographed by Ailey rehearsal director and guest artist Matthew Rushing, “Odetta” received its Atlanta pre- miere Thursday evening at the Fox Theatre alongside Ulysses Dove’s 1984 “Bad Blood” and Ailey’s “Revelations.”
The program reflected Ailey’s mission to serve as a repository for historic modern dance works, to nurture emerging choreographers and to present dance masterworks while celebrating AfricanAmerican culture. The appealing mix of old, new and classic pieces demonstrated the value in preserving history and its power to bring fresh inspiration to everyday things.
“Bad Blood,” is a welcome revival. To music by Laurie Anderson and Peter Gabriel,
Dance
Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum and the Tate Modern in London.
This is a stirring turn of events for an artist whose accomplished resume of exhibits, collaborations and other associations is chronicled in a graphic timeline that fills two walls of one of the High’s wedge galleries, but tails off notably after his death.
So, why is Lam’s legacy now receiving what High director Michael Shapiro termed a belated “recalibration” when he introduced the exhibit at a preview for media and hospitality industry leaders this week?
Eskil Lam, the artist’s son, who is responsible for managing his estate, puzzles over that.
“I wish I knew the answer,” he said, “because my father passed away in 1982. ... (He) was quite well known in the ’40s and ’50s, and then, all of the sudden, there’s been this kind of lull.”
But the 53-year-old Parisian did offer a theory: “In the ’70s, there was this divide and he was classified purely as a Latin American and he kind of faded to the periphery.” And now?
“It’s like the world is ready for it again.”
Certainly, the American museum world is be- coming more attuned to cultivating relationships with diverse communities and reflecting that diversity in its programming.
The High has reached out to Latino audiences through initiatives such as making 2013’s “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting” its first completely bilingual exhibit.
And the interactive outdoor art installation it commissioned from Ignacio Cadena and Héctor Esrawe last year, “Mi Casa, Your Casa,” has led to a sequel by the Mexican designers opening in April, “Los Trompos” (“The Spinning Tops”).
High promotional materials bill Lam as “a preeminent artist of Latin American origin and one of the surrealist movement’s most influential figures.”
That’s accurate, but perhaps oversimplified.
“Imagining New Worlds,” curated by former Atlantan Elizabeth T. Goizueta, reveals an artist in constant evolution. His expression ultimately becomes a picante gumbo of surrealism, magic realism, modernism and postmodernism, and boasts influences that include Afro-Cuban symbolism and imagery from the Wifredo Lam Santería religion of the Caribbean.
Extending its diversity outreach and trying to connect Lam with a new generation, the High is presenting concurrent solo exhibitions by Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou and Brooklyn-based José Parlá. The artists were challenged to, in their own ways, respond to Lam’s work.
Pecou, whose art frequently forms a commentary on the materialism and machismo of hip-hop culture, acknowledged that he didn’t know Lam’s oeuvre well initially.
But he quickly discovered that they shared an embrace of Yoruba spirituality, and that made the challenge of responding to pieces completed decades ago “refreshing.”
Standing in his gallery, between Parla’s and one given over to a collaboration the two undertook with Latino middleschoolers from Peachtree Presbyterian Church’s LaAmistad program, the Atlanta artist said he’s not surprised that there is a reflowering of interest in Lam. “Maybe it’s the perfect storm,” Pecou said. “There’s a great deal of interest in exploring art that goes beyond what we’ve typically looked at in terms of Eurocentric perspective. ...
“I think that’s really important, that we expand our own views and perspectives.”