This is a show for the entire family. Bring along the kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and join Jubilee and Dominion's forty talented performers on this exciting journey.
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Ramblin' Roads:
An Odyssey of Traditional American Dance and Music
Saturday May 6, 2006 evening 8:00 pm
Sunday May 7, 2006 matinee 2:30 pm
Join Jubilee American Dance Theatre on a journey celebrating the many cultures that influenced traditional American dance and music. Travel with Jubilee to the cities, towns, mountains, and bayous of America, where old and new customs merged, becoming part of the American fabric. Bluegrass, swing, old time country dances, clogging, they're all part of Ramblin' Roads.
Jubilee and Artistic Director Hilary Roberts are known for their ability to transport the audience to far-away times and places, bringing the traditions of the village green, open fields, small towns, and dance halls to life on stage. You'll wish you were up there dancing!
A diverse group of professional performers established in 2001, Dominion A Cappella Ensemble is known for its moving renditions of Negro Spirituals, and has led various sing-alongs and workshops demonstrating the artistic beauty of singing Spirituals, as well as preserving an historical legacy. Chants, Field Hollars, Call/Response, Jazz and Blues woven through story-telling are just a sample of what you will hear...
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American Feet
by Rachel Swan, East Bay Express (May 4, 2006)
© 2006 Village Voice Media. All rights reserved.
For a long time Phillip Garrison thought he was condemned to be that guy whose dancing talents were pretty much limited to jumping up and down at a party. Ballroom dancing was hard. Leading was hard. In fact, anything with steps was hard. Garrison came up in Louisiana, but says that by 1979, the year he turned 21 and moved out West, Queen Ida was still just a blip on his mind’s visual screen. Cajun and zydeco were about to hit the national radar, but Garrison really had only one thing to say about Louisiana’s native music: that it wasn’t cool.
One day about thirteen years ago, someone suggested he try Contra dancing, a form that Garrison describes as “the most accessible form of partner dance” that exists. He had a blast. Pretty soon he was a Contra dance party regular. From there he branched over to Balkan folk dancing, Lindy hop, Scandinavian, and several other genres including, yes, Cajun.
Five years ago Garrison hooked up with the Jubilee American Dance Theatre, a performance company that combines a variety of rootsy, folksy, and old-timey styles — such as clogging, bluegrass, Cajun, and Lindy hop — to illustrate the protean history of American dance. Jubilee’s current production, Ramblin’ Roads: An Odyssey of Traditional American Dance and Music, features styles as varied as a sailor’s hornpipe, a folkloric dance from Baja California (for which the company will don vaquero-style hats and boots), and a rendition of the Texas Tommy choreographed by the Stanford University dance historian Richard Powers (who recently uncovered footage of people doing the dance in San Francisco nightclubs in 1911). They’ll also perform a suite of dances to show how European, African, Latin, and indigenous cultures all contributed to the evolution of American dance — the points of contiguousness between, say, a European Contra (which is similar to the Virginia Reel) and a Cajun two-step, or between the cakewalk (which masters appropriated from their slaves, not realizing that it was originally designed to mock them), the Charleston, and the Lindy hop.
Ever the zealous folklorist, Roberts says she designed the costumes to perfectly match the periods from which these dances originated, down to the thinness of the 1940s suspenders and the stiffness of the plantation women’s stays (she describes a “stay” as “one of those metal undergarments that go inside a dress to keep it erect”). “I want people to have some sense of what it felt like to raise a barn, be a slave on a plantation, or be in a soda shop in middle America after WWII,” she says. After all, “dance doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it happens in a community.”
Ramblin’ Roads runs Saturday night at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts. Guest singers the Dominion A Cappella Ensemble will provide vocal accompaniment with a repertoire that includes spirituals, jazz standards, and contemporary R&B hits.
Ramblin' Roads: A Diverse Show
by Sandy Clark, Correspondent, Contra Costa Times (May 4, 2006)
© 2006 Knight Ridder Corp. Media. All rights reserved.
American music and dance are a record of our nation's immigrants and the subject of the Jubilee American Dance Theatre's production of "Ramblin' Roads," opening Saturday at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.
For Hilary Roberts, 49, dance is the living heritage of our nation.
"American dance is a conglomeration of many, many different ethnic styles," said Roberts, the founder and artistic director of the company. "Some of the people came here unwillingly. Some came because of religious persecution. These styles are always seen as separate but they have created not only each other but create a whole new unique fabric."
Roberts grew up in the great melting pot of New York City with her immigrant mother and first-generation American father. There she discovered dance and came to embrace first her own roots, and then those of everyone else.
She discovered her favorite dance style, Appalachian clogging, while performing traditional Yugoslavian dance at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. The performance by the Green Grass Cloggers from Asheville, N.C., captured her imagination.
"Of all the American dance forms, I've been doing it the longest," Roberts said. "Appalachian clogging was influenced by the body patter called hambone. Hambone grew out of slavery. Clogging incorporates Irish and Native American rhythms and English dance movement. It is the greatest mix of what happened in America."
Finding good performers who fit with the cast is one of Roberts biggest challenges. She is always scouting for new talent at events like National Dance Week, which ran through April 29. She holds an audition every year, but can't trust a formal process to find the right people.
"Because it is completely volunteer, I want them to be happy," Roberts said. "I want this to be a good fit with the company as well. Doing a formal audition doesn't work well. Having them warm up and work with us through a rehearsal lets me see that."
"Ramblin Roads" is the work of about 60 people and features around 40 dancers, singers and musicians, including the a capella group Dominion.
The performers range in ages from 17 to 73. Roberts speaks highly of fellow clogger O.J. Erickson, 73, who also does Irish Step and has been dancing most of his life.
The show is as diverse as its cast. It covers dance from the 1800s to the 1940s and is influenced by events as recent as last year.
"I wanted to honor the victims of Katrina," Roberts said. "We start with a Cajun piece. They are such a mix of French and Creole. Traditions are really influenced by African and European dance forms. The opening is a nod to our brothers and sisters in Louisiana."
Although this wasn't a goal when Roberts put the show together, "Ramblin Roads" also makes a powerful statement about immigration in light of current controversy.
"All the people who have come to America compel me," Roberts said. "You could have the separate experiences through the separate dances. To see it all come together in the context of history fascinates me."
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