10 August 29 - september 4, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Dance Off Breaking down the union-busting allegations at Dallas Black Dance Theatre. BY VANESSA QUILANTAN M ore than 100 performers and supporters gathered on the afternoon of Aug. 17 in 103-degree heat to form a picket line across the en- trance to the Dallas Black Dance Theatre. With sweat sopping their brows, partici- pants marched together, hoisting protest signs that bore the same words of their echoing chants, “Dallas Black, BRING THEM BACK!” and “Firing dancers? NOT THE ANSWER!” As the traffic on Arts Plaza died down be- tween Ross Avenue and Ann Williams Way (named for the Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s esteemed founder), the performers there fighting for their livelihood began dancing in the street to the hand-pounded rhythm of a single djembe drum. The dancers of DBDT leaped and whirled in a frenetic gyre over the sizzling pavement, engaging their mas- tery of movement as a universal language to the keepers of a stage from which they say they’ve been bulldozed. “When you are obedient in your struggle,” a woman bellowed through a megaphone as her flowing skirt swayed with every shake of her clenched fist, “when you are obedient in your resilience, there is no way that every sin- gle person who is present doesn’t understand the true unification of humanity!” The swarm of protesters gathered to combat what they say is injustice. Dallas Black Dance Theatre recently fired the en- tire troupe of main company performers, and dancers allege it was retaliation for their establishment of a worker’s union under the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). “This truly is unprecedented for an arts organization — an ostensibly progressive, for- ward-thinking, pro-worker, pro-artist organi- zation — to take this kind of action,” AGMA’s National Organizing Director Griff Braun tells the Observer. “This is a largely unionized industry at the highest levels of professional dance and opera. So, we always feel like it’s a badge of honor if artists unionize; it elevates the stature of a company tremendously.” “So this,” Braun presses, “this is not nor- mal.” But as the Dallas Black Dance Theatre tells it, the mass firings have nothing to do with recent unionization activity. Leader- ship insists that eliminating their entire leading company in one fell swoop was a justified response to the level of “unprofes- sionalism” exhibited in a video posted to the unofficially affiliated dancer-run Instagram account @dancersofdbdt. The video was posted by dancers on June 21. It depicts the performers in-studio at Dallas Black Dance Theatre, cutting up be- tween rehearsals under the caption, “MEET THE DANCERS.” Soundtracked to the theme song from the early-’90s primetime sitcom Family Matters, the video presents each company member onscreen through various pseudo-candid activities as they smile at the camera, in the style of a cheesy TV show’s opening credits sequence. Company performer Nile Ruff lifts a fel- low dancer like a human dumbbell. Hana Delong mimes punches to a flopping col- league’s gut in the flamboyant style of clowns performing for a child’s birthday party. Derrick McKoy Jr. narrowly squeezes between two walls sporting a mischievous caught-in-the-act grin. It’s the kind of cutesy social media fodder we’ve all become accus- tomed to in the age of TikTok. But James Fuller, founder of Arena Communications and spokesman for Dallas Black Dance The- atre, says the organization was not amused. “These are terminable offenses. There’s no second chance. And there were several things in that video they did that were against the code of conduct,” Fuller says. “So the things that happened in the video … you may not see it as a big deal. But when you look at the role that the dance company here is trying to play, especially recognizing that this is an African American community, we have to hold ourselves to a higher level of standards because we really want these dancers to be seen as just as good, just as professional, just as prepared and just as good of a role model as any other person out there, no matter what their color.” The implication that these standards of respectability politics in the Black commu- nity should apply to employees — and the message coming from Fuller, who’s white — doesn’t surprise recently terminated dancer Elijah W. Lancaster. “For me, that resonates in a hard way be- cause it’s just like, [Dallas Black Dance The- atre] wants us to be perfect. We are not perfect,” Lancaster says. “And [they] also grew this company in a time where … you had to conform to what I would say is a stan- dard of whiteness. “So [we] have to look a certain way, be- cause they’re trying to appeal to the more conservative white donors and sponsors.” Even with these questionable standards of professionalism, Dallas Black Dance The- atre’s reasoning for the mass termination still doesn’t add up to the troupe. Despite the video being posted to Instagram on June 21 (and initially to a dancers’ TikTok ac- count in 2023), the DBDT distributed signed letters of intent establishing employment for the upcoming season to these same com- pany dancers one week later. The firing sweep began to take place on Aug. 9, seven weeks after the video was posted to the @ dancersofdbdt page. In a statement sent to the Observer via Fuller, Dallas Black Dance Theatre said, “The video has damaged DBDT’s public im- age and jeopardized our relationships with donors and community partners. [...] This negative impact has already affected our fundraising, national touring, and other crit- ical opportunities.” Fuller could not confirm whether DBDT has lost any donors, community partners or touring performance bookings as a direct re- sult of the video. The full story of this controversy surround- ing Dallas Black Dance Theatre starts in the early months of this spring, when dancers in the main company decided that their working conditions had become untenable. “Some of the major things [were] defi- nitely the salary and the per diem,” says dancer Terrell Rogers Jr. “In order to sur- vive, each of us work multiple jobs in the evenings every single day just to pay our bills. And when we’d go on tour, which is pretty often at DBDT, we were unable to make that supplemental income. “Our per diem varies depending on whether or not we’re out of state, in state or international, but it’s never enough to offset the amount of money that we’re losing when we go on tour.” Lancaster says he earned more in a sec- ond-tier company at The Alvin Ailey Ameri- can Dance Theater in New York City before signing to the main troupe at Dallas Black Dance Theatre. “We were getting paid just enough to barely cover our rent as well as health insur- ance that we couldn’t even afford the copays for,” he says. “Because at the end of the day, we had no money. We had to figure out if you wanna eat, pay rent, pay your bills, or go to the doctor … you could never do it all in one week. And I think for us as artists, knowing how much we have to put in, knowing how much they expect from us and how much we want to give, it’s just physi- cally impossible knowing that we can’t even keep our bodies healthy and safe.” A dancer’s body is their livelihood. And even though Dallas Black Dance Theatre of- fers in-house physical therapy, the dancers say there are multiple conditions attached to that workplace benefit. DBDT’s company of 14 dancers were allotted only five 30-minute physical therapy appointment slots every other week, on a first-come-first-serve basis. Even more concerning, the therapy offered is solely preventive and is not intended to treat injuries. “It’s not that [the provided physical thera- pist] is ill-equipped to help us; it’s just not in the contract for her to be able to do that much for us,” Rogers says. “The repertoire that we do at Dallas Black Dance Theater is ex- tremely athletic. We dance five days a week, Monday through Friday. And we perform on the weekends a lot of times. So our bodies take a lot of wear and tear, just like athletes do. Even to be able to meet Dallas Black’s own mission statement of ‘relentless excellence,’ we can’t do that if our bodies are hurting and we can barely stand up some days.” The dancers say they were subjected to degrading cultural standards at DBDT that policed their gender presentation and hair- styles. “This company is predominantly young, there are different personalities and differ- ent ways they identify. So there are Vanessa Quilantan Dancers performed in front of the picket line across from Dallas Black Dance Theatre. ▼ Culture >> p12
