OCT 11-16
LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum centers the prolific artistry of Jazz music and dance as a cornerstone of Black American culture and community. Featuring an intergenerational and multi-disciplinary cast of Black dancers and musicians, this offering to the continuum celebrates the joy and sacred power of the Black experience to each artist - and the ensemble.
Barnes reaches back nearly 100 years, making visible the connections between the past to today’s Black dance expressions like House dance, Hip-Hop and more! The New York Times said of the Bessie-award winning Barnes: “Barnes is especially extraordinary for the way the past and the present can pass through her.” Her facilitation of the cast's exploration of their relationships to Jazz and its progenies through mind-bending musicality, spectacular athleticism, and boundless joy, shine through Barnes’ expansive choreography.
The Jazz Continuum celebrates music and dances from across the diaspora among them Harlem, Chicago, New Orleans, Cuba, Angola, and Brazil. It conjures the spirits of Black dance elders, including Norma Miller, Frankie Manning, Earl Snake Hips Tucker, Marie Bryant. and Marjory Smarth, in a riveting celebration of the continuum!