In the rehearsal studio Tuesday morning at Dallas Black Dance Theatre, some dancers warmed up their muscles, while others warmed up their vocal cords.
"We're actually not dancing in this work," DBDT company dancer Terrell Rogers, Jr. said. "We are singing in the work, so there's no musical soundtrack to the piece. The piece is vocal music."
Rogers and fellow company dancer, Sierra Noelle Jones, provide the a cappella soundtrack for the piece, GAMES.
"I'll be a little nervous, but I have you," Jones said looking at Rogers. "I think it's growing us as a company."
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"We are the Dallas Black Dance THEATRE, so why not do a piece that is giving more a musical theater lens," DBDT Artistic Director Melissa M. Young said. "To create a ballet that's nearly 30 minutes long and there's no audio score, it's all a cappella, to me that's genius!"
GAMES was choreographed by the late master choreographer Donald McKayle. It was first performed in 1951. The dance takes the audience on an emotional journey; from the nostalgia of childhood games to innocence lost.
"Those themes of poverty and racial tensions, even today in 2023, we still have a lot of those things that we're dealing with in our country," Rogers said.
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"It's a kind of mixed emotion of how some things are still the same, but it's interesting how things have evolved," Young said. "The emotion and how I feel about the work is just really how I feel about dance."
Young was a young dancer when she met McKayle and danced GAMES herself in the 1990s.
"Young artistic directors like myself, it's our responsibility to carry on the legacy of these works because we stand on mighty shoulders," Young said. "I've got professional dancers' careers in my hands and I get that gut feeling, my intuition...works like GAMES, I know it's right."
GAMES is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. It will be performed in Dallas Black Dance Theatre's upcoming 'Cultural Awareness' performance on Feb. 17 and 18. Tickets are available in-person and on demand.
