Based off of Jacob Lawrence’s iconic exhibition, Migration Series, Black Movement Dance Theatre’s upcoming On the Way Home highlights the idea of and emotions attached to a journey home. The artwork itself is a collection of 60 small paintings, completed in 1941, each depicting scenes from the Great Migration — a decades-long movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North circa 1915. On the Way Home similarly connects to the idea of a pilgrimage, through its pivots back and forth through movement and depictions on leaning on other performers for support.
In the past, BMDT’s performances strove to tell a story, and on its website the company describes itself as founded by those with “the artistic vision to express the African American experience through dance.” Since Spring 2004, BMDT has been a one-credit performance study class in the Department of Performing Arts. BMDT gives students a greater opportunity to work with professional dancers, such as Torens Johnson, who choreographed a portion of On the Way Home, as well as up-and-coming DC artists. Exceptional students are now given the chance to choreograph their own pieces, which Professor Davis, an artistic director linked to Georgetown’s Performing Arts Department, sees as a performer’s opportunity to grow both as a student and as an artist. Despite its continued standing as a company, BMDT’s addition to the academic roster has led students to consider it as more of an academic program and less as one built on passion. Yet passion seems to be the last thing the dancers and performers are lacking in, demonstrated not only through the beauty of the show but also through the time they put into it: the students are in the studio every Tuesday and Thursday, as well as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as the show date nears.
This performance in particular, though, is centered around the group itself. As a company performance, each dancer participates, and, continuing with the theme of support in Migration Series, each dancer must trust completely in one another’s abilities during the many impressive and intimidating jumps and leaps during the partner performances. As student co-director Elizabeth Erra puts it, On the Way Home allows you to “feel the company heartbeat” as you watch it play out in front of you.
