“LENAPEHOKING!”
Audience voices ring out in unison along with Morgan Lloyd, the MC of the evening. Introducing herself as “Truth–straight talker, slow walker with the ancestors,” she reminds us there are many stories and histories that make up Afroindigeneity. Truth invites us into a celebration of Turtle Island–the original name indigenous peoples and allies use to refer to the land that settlers reestablished as North America. Guiding us to reflect upon Philadelphia’s native origins together, Lloyd prompts a collective verbal land acknowledgement that precedes an evening of homage through DESCENDANZE: IN FULL EFFECT!
Native Nations Dance Theater and AfroDanze are both founded by Vaughnda Hilton (tribal heritage from the Blackfeet, Seminole & Creek nations). NNDT is Philadelphia’s only Indigenous, professional touring dance company developed for the purpose of educating about the existence of Native American artists in their community. AfroDanze offers African based workouts featuring popular African, Afro-Cuban, Latin & Native dance styles.
At the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, Native Nations Dance Theater (NNDT) and AfroDanze combine contemporary and traditional dances to honor indigeneity and legacy through a multigenerational, multicultural celebration. The evening length work brings a lively intentionality to the embodied storytelling that activates the stage with sentiments of togetherness, colonial and pre-colonial history, and the spirit of resistance. Spanning beyond traditional African and Native American dance forms to reach Afro American social dances, as well as Latin American and Caribbean Salsa, Mambo and Bomba–DESCENDANCE professes the creativity, vitality, belonging, and dignity cultivated through these dances.
A chorus of drums permeate the soundscape of the show and accompany movement expressions from Africa to Turtle Island and the Caribbean. The patterned rhythms carry a consistency that is stabilizing. Dancers’ movements are varied and lively against the steady sonic pulse and mesmerizing repetition. Still, I feel a longing for the drummers’ presence in the space. Instead, dancers move with an audio recording of the rhythms that guide each step—at times, falling out of engagement and into routine so the prescribed movement outlives presence in some of the pieces.
Upon invitation, audience members join Hilton on stage for a call and response style dance that turns into a cypher. Demonstrating a step, inviting us to repeat, then encouraging each brave, impromptu mover to show their style solo, Hilton blurs the lines between audience and performer. This reciprocal exchange reinforces the importance of communal expression that NNDT and AfroDanze have been cultivating and demonstrating throughout DESCENDANZE: IN FULL EFFECT!
In DESCENDANZE, the stage is not reserved for performance–instead, it’s a meeting ground for all willing to exchange in the recognition and continuation of Afro-Indigenous diasporic dances.
DESCENDANZE: IN FULL EFFECT!, Native Nations Dance Theater & AfroDanze, Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, Sept. 12 & 13.
