The times, they were a‑roilin’. Twentysomethings Cleo Parker Robinson, a choreographer, and Schyleen Qualls, her dance ensemble co-artistic director, were feeling artistically jazzed by the activism in the early 1970s.
“We got our afros. We were wearing African clothes,” Qualls recalled on the phone from San Francisco. “We were totally in the middle of the Black Power movement as artists.”
On Saturday, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance marks its 50th anniversary with “Out of the Box,” a reprise (of sorts) of two works that capture that generative moment — and speak to this one.
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“Out of the Box,” a Cleo Parker Robinson Dance virtual event, is Aug. 22 at 8 p.m.; streaming Aug. 22–28. Ticket and info at Cleoparkerdance.org
The first, “Lush Life,” was a collaboration between Parker Robinson and poet and friend Maya Angelou, who had been a dancer. The second, “Run Sister Run,” was inspired by Nikki Giovanni’s “A Poem of Angela Davis,” written in honor of the activist-social philosopher when she was incarcerated at New York’s Women’s House of Detention.
Their reprise at the Arvada Center — even virtually — is auspicious: Each premiered there.
The return will be virtual, of course. The link will be active from the evening of Aug. 22 to Aug. 28. And, of course, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. (How many times have you heard or thought that since March?)
“First, my brain couldn’t even imagine it,” Parker Robinson said during a video call, referring to the arrival of the coronavirus before CPRD’s 50th anniversary. “I thought, ‘There’s not going to be a tour; there won’t be concerts; there won’t be the academy (the company’s dance school). There won’t be a celebration.’ “
But an arts organization doesn’t turn 50, doesn’t become a touchstone cultural institution, doesn’t receive the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts without working through adversity.
“She has only one speed,” says Qualls of her one-time collaborator and long-time friend. “That’s full speed ahead. There were times when the company had no money and people would say, ‘Maybe we should pause.’ But she doesn’t know ‘pause.’ “
“I’ve got my track shoes on,” Parker Robinson said when she hopped on a Zoom call. “Run sister run,” indeed.
In 1983, filmmaker Margie Soo Hoo Lee documented the making of the Angela Davis piece. As Davis, Parker Robinson ducks and dodges through Denver’s streets, then promptly vanishes, thanks to the magic of spliced film. Watching the young dancer — wearing a soft afro, jeans and a denim jacket — may elicit a smile for the earnest gestures and rough tech. But seeing Parker Robinson walk arm and arm on a snowy Vail lane with legend Gordon Parks (author of “The Learning Tree,” Life Magazine photographer, director and composer of “Shaft”) is something to behold. And Lee’s documentary has an archival magnetism that draws in the viewer.
In a voice-over, Parker Robinson tells Parks of her plans to make Cleo Park Robinson Dance as well-known as Vail and Aspen. In international dance circles, it very nearly is. Her thoughts about choreographing the piece are startlingly contemporary. “I feel as a choreographer, as a black woman, I must say something. That’s my tool,” Parker Robinson says in the film, leaning on the piano where Parks sits at work on music for the piece. In rehearsal, Parker Robinson directs three dancers who portray women Davis recalled from her time in jail. The movements are vivid: a dancer becoming unhinged in solitary; a 14-year-old experiencing heroin withdrawal; and a pregnant woman in duress.
The Black Live Matter protests of the summer reverberate with the era that forged “Run Sister Run.”
“Are we going in circles here?” Parker Robinson replied, when asked about those echoes. ”Have we regressed?”
While the systemic brutality that called forth the summer’s protests feels too familiar, the energy of the work comes from a different connectivity, a deeper communal awareness. “We understand that we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. Always.”
One of those figures was her father, Johnathan “J.P” Parker, manager of Colorado Women’s College’s Houston Fine Arts Center and the first Black actor at the Bonfils Theatre under legendary producer Henry Lowenstein.
While Parker Robinson absorbed lessons from her father’s work in theater, Qualls — also a native of Denver — had been soaking up the creative demands of nurturing artmaking at the influential Negro Ensemble Company in New York City. When Qualls returned to Colorado and met Parker Robinson, the duo saw the possibilities, said Qualls.
“We just decided, ‘OK, let’s start a serious company.’ We were in our early twenties. We’re dreamers. We had a lot of faith.”
For almost the entirety of the ensemble’s first decade, Qualls emceed the show, performed poetry between the pieces and sometimes in them. She’ll appear in the Angelou role in “Out of the Box.”
“I never thought this could be a vehicle that could really bring us together, because I’ve been a physical, physical person,” Parker Robinson said of the technology that is keeping the arts in touch with audiences these days.“We were like, ‘Omigod, how are we going to do this?’ I have been choreographing for over 60 years. All know is how to touch the body or move the body. This is going to be really difficult and really painful.”
It has been at times. But once the company started going virtual, she realized some of the things the company had been wanting to try out were things she’d been wanting to do for a long time. “We can reach a larger audience.”
While “Out of the Box” won’t be live, it should prove chockful: In addition to “Run Sister Run” and “Lush Life” footage (with Qualls in the Angelou role), there will be solos from the ensemble’s “LaNina” and the exquisite “Mourners Bench”; interviews with Robinson, Qualls and “Run Sister Run” director Lee; and chats with CPRD soloists Tyvese Littlejohn and Chloe-Grant Abel.