A crowd of dancers tried to keep up as an instructor demonstrated Senegalese sabar. The movements were rapid and precise. The dancers’ feet didn’t stay on the floor for long, they were propelled by a drumbeat that never stopped.
“You don’t have to know how to do it,” Elhadji Dieng said from the front of the class. “You just have to have the attitude.”
In the middle of the group was professor Iris Rosa, the director of the African American Dance Company. The dancers, members of the company, were learning sabar techniques during Thursday’s rehearsal for part of the AADC’s upcoming show April 9.
The company also prepared for its annual dance workshop, which will take place Friday and Saturday at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.
Rosa has been the director of the AADC since its inception in 1974. She identifies as a storyteller and said dance is a fluid way to communicate history and culture of communities of the African diaspora.
“The difference in dance is that it’s ephemeral — you do it once, and it’s gone,” Rosa said. “It’s the experience in the moment of the dance that’s really important.”
Dance is constantly evolving, Rosa said. Each time a piece is performed, though it may be the same choreography and the same music, it’s a different interpretation. She said dance is a living art, which leads to stories being continued and changed over time.
Rosa said honoring dance traditions is important, too, especially for those who are further from their cultural history.
“You gotta know where you come from to know where you’re going,” she said.
Rosa said her own Puerto Rican heritage provides a historical and cultural basis for her to interact with other cultures.
“I’ve been able to expand and learn about other cultures,” she said. “How does that connect with where I’m from and who I am as an Afro-Latina?”
Rosa began dancing in high school. She cited her mentor, Mildred Ball, as the one who introduced her to modern dance.
Now, Rosa acts as a mentor to many of her students.
“Her class definitely opened my eyes to a whole new world,” said Amelia Smith, an African American and African Diaspora Studies graduate student. “Not even just in dance, but in the way I go about my daily life.”
Smith, who works as Rosa’s assistant, was part of the dance company for two semesters at the end of her undergraduate career. She said her time working with Rosa fundamentally changed how she thought about people.
She said she recalled working on a historical narrative piece during her first semester in the company. The class discussed a scene where the dancers sat in a clump, alluding to slaves on a ship in the Middle Passage.
“How would someone who isn’t black relate to this?” one student asked.
Smith said Rosa turned to her: “Amelia, as a white female, how do you relate to this?”
She was overwhelmed, she said. She didn’t know how to answer the question.
“But as I sat there and thought about it, I had this ‘aha’ moment, that this isn’t just a dance class,” Smith said. “I’m not just dancing here, this class is just about life, and it’s about how we relate to each other. And I think that was my big moment when I knew that this experience was going to be really important to me.”
Being in Rosa’s class fills a creative void, sophomore Savasia Fletcher said. This is Fletcher’s first semester in the company and her first time seriously dancing.
“She’s taught me rhythm,” she said. “I didn’t have rhythm.”
At the end of the workshop, Fletcher said the company will perform a piece addressing how problems the black community faced in the 1960s are still relevant today.
“I really hope the audience gets the message we’re trying to portray,” she said. “I hope they get the message that we all have to stick together as a community and try to make a change in the world. We all have to come together to create a positive change.”
