BLACK DANCE GROUP TRUE TO ITS ROOTS

Alvin Ailey is known throughout the world as the apostle of black dance. But San Diego has its own missionary of Afro-American culture. For almost 10 years, Danny Scarborough, chairman of the Afro-American studies department at San Diego State University, has been spreading the gospel of black dance through what he calls his “living museum.”

With an unorthodox cast of students from his Afro-American studies classes (none of whom are dance or drama majors) and a few zealots culled from the community and the high schools, Scarborough presents boldly theatrical performances that fuse African-inspired dance expressions with contemporary blues, jazz and spiritual forms.

The Emmy Award presented to Scarborough and his troupe in 1978 for a KPBS television special attests to the fact that the Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience is no typical group of amateurs when they take the stage.

This week Scarborough--who writes, directs, and choreographs every concert himself--will present a show at SDSU’s Main Stage Theatre. The three performances, designed as a benefit for the Department of Afro-American Studies Cultural Arts Program, will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

As usual, Scarborough will be among the cast when his 47-member company performs its ambitious seven-part program of repertory pieces.

“The program is a celebration of Afro-American culture--like all of our concerts,” said Scarborough, his words spilling out with lightning speed. “The title ‘When Roosters Crow, Something ‘Pose to Happen,’ refers to the theme of this concert, which is African-American folklore. It’s almost a universal folklore based on the crowing of the rooster. They say, if the rooster crows at night, someone will die. And if the rooster crows in the afternoon, someone will be with child.

“As a boy raised on a farm, the rooster was part of my legend. (The crowing rooster) could control your life. This program deals with the fact that if you stay around long enough, something will happen.”

Scarborough transformed that crowing rooster image into a metaphor for serious contemporary issues as diverse as drug addiction among young children in San Diego and apartheid in South Africa.

Although Scarborough believes that Africa is “headed for a blood bath,” in his theatrical statement titled “Apartheid Is Wrong,” he was determined to avoid heavy-handed polemics. Starting with a musical montage that includes excerpts from Stevie Wonder’s “Apartheid: It’s Wrong,” Scarborough etched a dance work that uses abstraction and the magic of technical theater instead of stark realism to present its message.

“There are no whites beating up on blacks in this piece,” he said. “It’s a message through movement. We’ll use very harsh lights--a strong white light--to represent (oppression) by the whites. It’s a fantastic statement, because you can never see the evil. It’s too elusive.”

Despite the program’s strong subject matter, the theme is “basically optimistic and upbeat,” Scarborough said. “But we’re saying, there’s possibilities . We’re not optimistic to the point of being unrealistic. You have to be honest, but you can do things on stage that you can’t do anywhere else.”

However, for the last part of the program, Scarborough will put the accent back on rafter-raising, Ailey-style spiritualism. For a traditional suite of gospel dances, the company will be joined by SDSU’s Black Gospel Choir.

Although Scarborough never danced with the Alvin Ailey troupe, he has studied the Ailey technique in workshops and said: “Ailey is my idol.”

But he believes his dancers have something that Ailey’s professionals have lost:

“They’re losing their souls. The Ailey company can handle all the choreographic demands, but the dances have lost their meaning. They’re just movements now. . . .

“What we do in my classes is, I lecture to them on these issues. The students have to read about the Mandellas and talk about what’s happening to the blacks in South Africa.

“They don’t just dance movements--they dance from their feelings. That’s the missing ingredient, and that’s what makes us special.”