KRISTA BONURA
A’aliyah Khan and Okewa Garrett of Eleone Dance Theatre, which used a Pew grant to develop the program.
Posted on Tue, May. 4, 2010
By Merilyn Jackson
For The Inquirer
Eleone Dance Theatre premiered a wonderful reconstruction of Katherine Dunham’s Americana Suite Saturday afternoon at Freedom Theatre, showing it can perform at a fully professional level, though most of the program did not rise that high.
Eleone, having received a $46,000 grant from the Pew Foundation’s Dance Advance to rebuild parts of Dunham’s revue-style suite, brought in former Dunham dancers Ruby Streate, of the Katherine Dunham Center, and Glory Van Scott to oversee the project.
Eleone, having received a $46,000 grant from the Pew Foundation’s Dance Advance to rebuild parts of Dunham’s revue-style suite, brought in former Dunham dancers Ruby Streate, of the Katherine Dunham Center, and Glory Van Scott to oversee the project.
A “Prologue” got it off on the right foot with a joyful demonstration of Dunham movement: the guys jumping higher than the gals’ heads, the gals rotating their wrists along with their hips, that rib-pumping thing goin’ on, a whole lotta stomping, and shimmying down to their knees.