2008 Woodie Awards
Dancing on the trapeze of identity
Tessa Ruddy - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 5/2/07 Section: Arts
It's 1990, and the San Francisco Bay area is swarming with young artists from every imaginable ethnic background. The crack epidemic is in full swing, and Nelson Mandela is being released from prison when a love triangle forms: two men - one white lawyer (Mark), one black visual artist (Stephen) - and a young black female trapeze artist (Fifha).
The Dance focuses on the fact that the two black characters come from vastly different experiences. This allows them to teach one another about the stereotypical definition of a "black person." It's Fifha's Edith Piaf meeting Stephen's Public Enemy.
The Dance, the third play in the Iowa New Play festival, will début tonight in Theatre B of the Theatre Building.
( DI Web video feature )
"I'm looking at how interpersonal dynamics and communications are affected when the issue of racial identity comes into play," said UI playwright Kim Euell.
She moved to the San Francisco Bay area after high school and received her undergraduate degree in international relations and African American studies from Stanford University. She originally aspired to go into foreign-policy planning for Africa but had a change of heart when she realized how dramatically policies could shift with the introduction of a new administration. Studying playwrighting, she says, is like embarking on a second career.
The Dance was inspired by her own experiences as a young black artist.
"I've never been anywhere in this country where the issue of ethnic diversity was as celebrated as it is in the Bay area," she said. "If you go into the business district at lunch and see co-workers sitting together, the table will look like the Rainbow Coalition."
Euell wanted to bring this diversity to the American theater where roles for black actors, she said, are often limited to stereotypes.
This concept also hit a nerve with Director Tisch Jones, who targeted issues of ethnicity in poverty in 2005's Main Stage show, Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood.
"I think we need to have plays about different kinds of black people who are suffering from racism," Jones said. "That's what compels me. I am from a middle-class background like the character in this play. There are not enough stories about this group of people."
The lead is played by Jones' daughter, Patrice Jones, who received her M.F.A. in acting from the University of Minnesota. She plays an aspiring choreographer and trapeze artist who is grappling with her own identity as a black artist from a middle-class background. As a part of her acting training, Patrice Jones took circus classes. She was cast as the female lead because of her experience in acrobatics.
Tisch Jones and her daughter have experienced pigeonholing firsthand. She cites recent encounters with this sort of bigotry, including comments on Patrice Jones' lighter skin tone ("Are you mulatto?") and even Jones' love of country-western music.
"It's not just racism from the outer world," Tisch Jones said. "In other words, you have to show up your blackness. You get it from all around. 'Are you black enough?' "
E-mail DI reporter Tessa Ruddy at:
tessa-ruddy@uiowa.edu
The Dance focuses on the fact that the two black characters come from vastly different experiences. This allows them to teach one another about the stereotypical definition of a "black person." It's Fifha's Edith Piaf meeting Stephen's Public Enemy.
The Dance, the third play in the Iowa New Play festival, will début tonight in Theatre B of the Theatre Building.
( DI Web video feature )
Video in QuickTime format, click here for free player download
"I'm looking at how interpersonal dynamics and communications are affected when the issue of racial identity comes into play," said UI playwright Kim Euell.
She moved to the San Francisco Bay area after high school and received her undergraduate degree in international relations and African American studies from Stanford University. She originally aspired to go into foreign-policy planning for Africa but had a change of heart when she realized how dramatically policies could shift with the introduction of a new administration. Studying playwrighting, she says, is like embarking on a second career.
The Dance was inspired by her own experiences as a young black artist.
"I've never been anywhere in this country where the issue of ethnic diversity was as celebrated as it is in the Bay area," she said. "If you go into the business district at lunch and see co-workers sitting together, the table will look like the Rainbow Coalition."
Euell wanted to bring this diversity to the American theater where roles for black actors, she said, are often limited to stereotypes.
This concept also hit a nerve with Director Tisch Jones, who targeted issues of ethnicity in poverty in 2005's Main Stage show, Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood.
"I think we need to have plays about different kinds of black people who are suffering from racism," Jones said. "That's what compels me. I am from a middle-class background like the character in this play. There are not enough stories about this group of people."
The lead is played by Jones' daughter, Patrice Jones, who received her M.F.A. in acting from the University of Minnesota. She plays an aspiring choreographer and trapeze artist who is grappling with her own identity as a black artist from a middle-class background. As a part of her acting training, Patrice Jones took circus classes. She was cast as the female lead because of her experience in acrobatics.
Tisch Jones and her daughter have experienced pigeonholing firsthand. She cites recent encounters with this sort of bigotry, including comments on Patrice Jones' lighter skin tone ("Are you mulatto?") and even Jones' love of country-western music.
"It's not just racism from the outer world," Tisch Jones said. "In other words, you have to show up your blackness. You get it from all around. 'Are you black enough?' "
E-mail DI reporter Tessa Ruddy at:
tessa-ruddy@uiowa.edu
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