VIVA School Envision Gala, October 2023
Patrons clad in their finest cocktail attire gathered in the Oprah Winfrey Theater for the Second Annual VIVA Gala, which took place on October 28th at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The theme this year was, “A New Renaissance,” not to be confused with another mega-famous artist’s recently completed tour/ album sharing a similar name and ethos. More specifically, this night centered around birthing new performers and providing a platform for these talented students of color to launch their professional dance careers. When speaking about the theme to co-founder and artistic director Chandini Darby, she characterizes it as a celebration, not only of how VIVA is evolving as an organization, but how the art of dance is evolving too. To create the showcased works, selected choreographers drew inspiration from some elements of the past to reimagine the works we witnessed, into something more reflective of the times that we live in today.
2023 marks VIVA dance school’s sixth year in operation. The audition-required school supports emerging artists from the DC metro area. Once a child has earned their spot, their entire tuition is covered, leaving them and their parents able to focus on nurturing their minds and their talent. This model is effective, as 100% of VIVA’s students have been accepted to 4-year colleges, and the students have collectively earned over $1 million in scholarships for this current calendar year.
In the first piece, Emergence, the students took the stage in quiet, sporting metallic, teal suits and serious expressions. If I had to ascribe any meaning to the sartorial choice, it would be that they came to work, establishing themselves as young professionals in the dance world. Movements were arm-focused, as if to symbolize the dancers carving out a space for themselves in the industry .
Ja’Kyah Vaughns, her hair styled in finger waves, stood out amongst the first set of dancers with her finger waves; in fact she was a focal point for most of the show. The instant she took the stage, her impassioned performance pulled you in.
This performance was a debut for Vaughns, who has danced with VIVA since its inception in 2017 and will be going to college next year. Taking the stage in VIVA’s gala this year, as an inaugural member of the school, was something of a full circle moment for her. This performance was a testament to this combination of old and new ideas to create an experience that felt unique. Vaughns was able to work alongside the choreographers as she practiced her pieces, and the symbiosis of the process made the work more personal to her. “For both of the works that we’re presenting at the gala I have been able to work alongside the choreographers and talk to them. It’s not just like, you know, [the choreographers] come in and they give us stuff and they don’t have interaction with us. We create connections. We give them inspiration. They have set movements for us, but then we show them what we can do and then they’re inspired by us, and what they give us is inspirational to us as well.” Vaughns said.
As the opening piece shifted into its second half, the backing track became a recording of the dancers on stage reading a poem by Darby, line by line. The second half of the piece, entitled I Am A Burgeoning, augments the established idea of the young dancers blossoming and coming into their own, with lines like “I am on the edge of my yesterday and the cusp of my tomorrow.” The choreography had a modern quality and the emphasized breathing we saw in the first part continued, punctuating the spaces between the lines in the poem. “Burgeoning is that idea of rapidly flourishing, coming to life. It talks about standing in the Delta of your existence and how it’s an overflow, drawing from metaphors of how your body, you’re pouring out so much.” Darby said.
The time, investment and energy required to train young dancers is significant, but seeing all of that effort pay off when polished performers take the stage makes it worthwhile to Darby. This outpouring, after all of the labor required to bring the artists to the stage, is something the art director wanted to give her pupils the means to express.
“[This work] is drawing from, and shining light on what it looks like to see someone really grow and transform before your eyes,” said Darby.
Darby grew up dancing in DC, so at one point she was just like her dancers. Now, she has evolved and made a career for herself in the dance world, just as she envisions her students at VIVA will do someday, too. Her explanation of the opening piece demonstrates not only that of the young artists at VIVA, but her own desire to pour into the next generation of artists.
The next piece, which was also poetry/spoken word based, was an excerpt of The Missing Fruit, a play on the well known Billie Holiday song Strange Fruit, choreographed and performed by Roderick George and also performed by Nouhoum Koita. The original text and vocals are from Invisible by Alycia Miles. This dance started off with a singular male dancer whose graceful motion encompassed the entire stage until he was joined by another male dancer as the piece progressed. The dancers held each other, their fluid movements accompanied by morose strings while the spoken word hinted at the ways many hardships that befall black people go unrecognized.
Credit: Photography by Aman Mitchell-Bonsu
The third piece I Told Jesus, named for the Roberta Flack song and choreographed by Keven Iega Jeff, began with a Ghrai DeVore-Stokes, clad in purple, kneeling on the floor with pained expression, a theme that continued from the previous work. The audience all had an audible reaction to an incredible moment at the climax of the piece where DeVore-Stokes leaned back, summoning an otherworldly amount of core strength. As a former church girl myself (Beyonce “Renaissance” reference fully intended), this emotional, and expressive piece reminded me of the liturgical dances one may see in a predominately African-American church, which are usually performed alongside the church choir or accompanied by gospel music.
The performance continued with a piece performed by the older VIVA students, entitled Until lambs become…, choreographed by Nicole Clarke-Springer. Four dancers wearing red dresses appeared on stage, kneeling and still in great pain, accompanied by Nina Simone’s “Isn’t It A Pity”. The repeated motion of clutching the dress in their crotch area, as if experiencing a debilitating menstrual cramp or worse, gave the piece a visceral quality. The dancers’ breathing acted as a percussive element in the piece, as it did in the opener. As the dancers writhed in pain, eventually the lead dancer began to help the others up. As the piece reached its summit, two dancers embraced which caused the other dancers to do the same. Observing this quartet led me to the idea that everyone goes through hardship, and the only way to get past it is if someone, who manages to overcome their own pain, decides to use their strength to help the next person along , which initiates a ripple effect.
The next piece took the inspirational tone of the previous dance’s ending and brought the show to a much more bubbly place. Take 5, choreographed by Fredrick Earl Mosley, started with a man (Jamal Story) and woman (Daphne Marcelle Lee), dressed in standard office attire, oxford shirt and tie, with dress pants and sensible shoes (sensible enough to still dance in, anyway). The man’s demeanor was serious, his impassioned pleas to get his counterpart to focus and get to work (i.e. do the choreography) in the same no nonsense manner as he. Instead, she embraced levity and took a lighthearted approach to the dance. He tried several times to get her on the same page, but her jovial temperament won out in the end, causing him to loosen his tie and join the fun. By the end of the piece, they both danced together in harmony, smiling and leaping with their ties around their foreheads.
The final piece of the night was Unleashed, choreographed by Fredrick Earl Mosley, which was a joyous number where all of the students from VIVA danced together. “I have a special place in my heart for the finale. Because it really showcases a large, large sample size of our school.” Art Director Darby said during a pre-gala interview. “There’s a wide age range and a wide level offering [of] our students. It’s really upbeat, it’s really high energy. It’s also really interesting. I think there’s a really beautiful contrast choreographically to the music that you’re gonna hear.” The music accompanying this piece included “Come Alive” and “This Is Me” from the movie, “The Greatest Showman”.
Credit: Photography by Aman Mitchell-Bonsu
Darby’s own daughter, Jazz Darby, showcased the immense talent present at the school, cascading from the students graduating, all the way down to the youngest students. The bright piece gave each student their time to shine, showcasing lead dancers from their previous pieces in the show, as well as students we had yet to see perform, such as a young boy, Khaleel Smith, whose presence demonstrated what the dance school has to offer in terms of education for aspiring male dancers. “There’s a real opportunity and a newfound Liberation with artists, especially young artists, to draw from [the past] but then to also reimagine and recreate. At the VIVA school, we give our students an opportunity to do that and to have their own voice inside of the larger artistic landscape.” Unleashed served as a showcase of the young dancers’ raw potential and ended the night on a high note, expressing gratitude to the donors and supporters in the audience, and ensuring that the investments of time, money and encouragement that they received were not in vain. I can imagine the professional dancers proudly looking at the students who would hopefully become their peers in the world of professional dance someday, shining under their tutelage.
Although I didn’t know any of the young performers personally, I felt extremely proud of the students. The fact that they held their own while performing in sequence with professional dancers speaks to the quality of education provided at the school. It didn’t feel like one of those school showcases where the levels of talent vastly differ from piece to piece. The movements in the student works were as close to identical as could be while still leaving enough room to showcase the individuality of each student performing them.
Ja’Kyah Vaughns was inspired seeing dancers that looked like her, that were farther along in their professional dance journey, come back to teach students. “It’s extremely special and it’s extremely vital that we have these experiences with people that look like us.” she said. “ [The choreographers] look like us and they have gone through great lengths to be where they are. They push us. They let us know that we can do this… that we are more than capable, and we can be the best that we can. It’s very important that we can see that. Their accomplishments inspire us to be great and do all that we can to be where they are and go far.”
Credit: Photography by Aman Mitchell-Bonsu
Their choreographer selection was intentional, as explained by the Art Director, Chandini Darby. “I think that one of the things that’s really important to me, and to us as an organization, is that we are surrounding ourselves with people who care about the human, care about the soul, and care about how you experience yourself, your humanity inside of your life. To combat the chaos and overall busyness of life, Darby intentionally looks to work with artists who can help create art with her students that serves as an outlet, with the ability to transform and the power to bring experiences to life.
“The choreographers that we chose, it’s really important that they’re engaged with the work and with our students. We want them to be bought into the mission, which is to center students of color and transform the field of dance, with excellence in Dance Education at the forefront.”
Centering that mission, to Darby also means centering each student and their entire identity, including their experiences, families, and cultural backgrounds. Darby understands that keeping all of those factors in mind as a choreographer can prove to be very complex, but fully believed in the capabilities of the choreographers selected to do this, all while considering the diverse supporters who would attend the gala, i.e, students, staff, families, community partners, and philanthropic community members. “It isn’t often that our entire community can connect like that, and to be able to create something that’s not only compelling, but meaningful and something that allows us to be contemplated.”
In this way, this mission connects to something co-founder Kelli Quinn said in the gala’s opening remarks, “learning is both a dialogue and a process.” This quote is reminiscent of Paulo Frieire’s concept of “critical pedagogy”, a fundamental concept set forth in his work, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (which I read a while ago, trying to keep up with a book club). To summarize, this work refers to different models of education and how they apply to people who experience oppression. The idea is that teaching should not be a top-down model where students are just empty vessels to be filled by their instructor, but that learning should be a back and forth between teacher and student, where each can learn from each other.
Here, you can see critical pedagogy actively applied in the work VIVA intentionally does to aid in the advancement of their student population. The choreographers engaged in this process with students, who were able to see a glimpse of their futures in dance, while being gently guided by people who looked like them, who faced similar challenges and still were able to dance professionally. The choreographers also learned from the student’s experiences, both informing the other.
I can only imagine what a school like VIVA could have done for students when I was their age. I wonder what the world would be like if society had been ready to nurture the talent of young dancers of color, if they were only given the attention and instruction that barriers of class, race, etc. had always dangled just out of their reach. Organizations like this, who remove those barriers, really are bringing about a new renaissance, and I am grateful to live in a time where I can see those efforts pay off.
Written by Aja Neal
The VIVA School is a nonprofit organization and welcomes support through donations on their website: https://www.thevivaschool.org/support
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