When guests entered Commons at Yale Schwarzman Center, the stage greeted them like a blank canvas awaiting its grand tapestry—the mainstage performance of DanceHaven: A Celebration of Vernacular Dance. The brainchild of Yale student Gabrielle Niederhoffer ’23 as part of her senior thesis in American Studies, the public performance on April 15, 2023, was the culmination of the two-day festival which celebrated dance in New Haven, offered six public masterclasses, and took an avid audience into the diaspora of Black vernacular dance.
The Winard Harper Collective kicked off the event with a jazz standard followed by Bessie Award winner Philip Hamilton with just his bongo and vocal scatting while dancer Candice Michelle Franklin mimicked the rhythms with her body in the style of Dunham Contemporary Jazz.
Michael “Mike D Chicago” Davis and Donnetta "LilBit" Jackson sauntered in wearing street clothes, backpacks, and distractedly walking towards each other. When they inevitably collided, a dance battle of Chicago Footwork ensued. Riffing to rhythms as fast as 160 beats per minute, the dancers drew whoops and hollers from the audience as their competition ultimately ended in a shared celebration.
An introspective rendition of “Until the Lion Tells the Story…” by Yale lecturer and preeminent West African Dance specialist Lacina Coulibaly provided a sharp contrast to the earlier performances—a dichotomy of the lion’s majestic serenity and violent prowess expressed in three movement themes.
Next, the audience was taken to Harlem in the 1930s as Franklin returned to the stage with Samuel Coleman as the duo “Sammy and Candy.” The pair danced the Lindy Hop, covering every inch of the stage with fluid motion, lifts and twirls, to an up-tempo mix of jazz, swing, and Charleston that had everyone bopping in their seats.
With spoken word followed by the explosive sound of Sanu Basu’s Akan drum, African and Afro-diasporic dancer, singer, and choreographer Kara Mack took the stage in a soccer jersey and African-printed pants. "Modern on the top and traditional on the bottom,” Mack explained how her family brought a drum from Africa five generations ago and played it until it was outlawed in the 1700s. The African people found a new way to be percussive with their bodies and their voices, she said. Basu pounded on the drum while Mack prompted to audience punctuate the beats with claps and a guttural “Huh!”
Finally, tap legend and Yale Schwarzman Center artist-in-residence Dormeshia offered an effortlessly powerful performance, tapping to popular jazz standards as gently as if she were a figure skater gliding on glass. “It was as if she were floating on the stage—at times, it would appear she was standing still and yet her feet were producing beautiful rhythms. I was absolutely speechless!” gushed a visitor.
In the end, all the performers joined Dormeshia and treated the audience to a joyous, improvisational wrap-up.
After a short question-and-answer session, many of the dance artists mingled with audience members and danced with guests in The Underground where DJ Ch’Varda kept the DanceHaven spirit alive.
