This weekend, many badass women will take the stage to convey some very important issues. The mediums of dance, poetry, song, theatre, multimedia and visual arts will be the ways these messages will get told. In other words, this Friday and Saturday nights will be Contemporary Dance Theatre’s Performance and Time Art’s (PTA) show. This performance kicks off the 2015-2016 series for PTA shows. These PTA shows are one of Cincinnati’s longest-running performance art series.
Diana L. Ford is the Choreographer, Director, Producer and one of the dancers in this upcoming show that is based on her community Facebook blog page entitled Welcome to America: There’s Gotta be Something Better than this Crap. It started when she was getting her master’s in Liberal Arts with a concentration in humanities and social justice. She created it as her final project. On the page, she writes and shares things about a variety of different social justice issues. The PTA performance allows many of these ideas to come to life in an artistic form. The show will consist of dance, song, poetry, visual arts, theatre and multimedia.
On Tuesday, I sat in on one of the rehearsals with the dancers. One of my favorites had the dancers in coal-mining-like outfits with rags they whipped as they danced. They also wore money glasses. Diana said this one is a commentary on how much debt we are all in. She thinks it’s the modern-day slavery.
“Right now so many people are caught up in debt,” she said. “Everything they own belongs to a corporation.”
The dancers dance to “Sixteen Tons,” an old song about owing your sole to the company store. Back in the day, coal mining towns often had a store owned by the mining company. They had people pay in credit. So when your paycheck came, much of it just went right back to the coal company via the company store. Very powerful. All the dancers agreed that this was their favorite song to dance to.
“Modern dance can be anything,” said dancer Lisa Schechtman. “There’s no limits and no rules. You can’t go wrong.”
The dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves as they changed into different costumes. One involved rings that lit-up. Another included some wings. Dancer Glenda Figueiredo said she feels complete when she dances.
Diana hopes that people come away wanting to take action about the issues discussed. After all, there will a lot of opinions and ideas about the state of our world today. She also hopes it stirs up a stronger urge for community, something she feels very passionate about.
“Your community is important,” she said. “Ultimately you cannot rely on your government to help you. You have to rely on your community. There was a point where we were very community-oriented. We took care of each other and made sure our neighbor was okay, and now we don’t do that anymore. It’s important to get back to those roots because when something happens, your neighbor will know if you’re dead or your house is on fire.”
There are two Contemporary Dance Theatre PTA shows. Both shows begin at 8 p.m., with the doors opening at 7 at the Contemporary Dance Theatre (1805 Larch Ave. Cincinnati, Ohio 45224). Tickets are $15 general admission and $12 for students. You can call the Contemporary Dance Theatre at (513) 591-1222 for more information. You can also check out the Facebook page for more information.
