Grandmother of Inspiration : Dance: David Rousseve delved into his family’s past to relate his choreography to today’s world.

Thelma Arceneaux, a Louisiana Creole, was the grandchild of a slave and the grandmother of a Princeton-educated actor and choreographer who, for many years, was ashamed of her.

That choreographer, David Rousseve, now believes his grandmother had an incredibly interesting life, and he is proud to portray her life and heritage on stage.

Arceneaux’s life as a cotton-picker in the Deep South became the inspiration for Rousseve’s major dance-theater work, still in progress, titled “Pull Your Head to the Moon: Tales of Creole Women.” An excerpt, “Colored Children Flyin’ By,” will be performed Thursday through Saturday at the Lyceum Theatre as part of the national dance project, Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century, presented by Sushi Performance and Visual Art. (Please see related story for more information about related programs.)

Rousseve’s “Colored Children Flyin’ By” is thematically based on the juxtaposition of text, movement, and visuals from the life of “an elderly Creole woman down South in Louisiana,” with stories and movement derived from contemporary African American experience, the choreographer explained. Rousseve employs what has been described as contemporary African American movement styles including hip hop and street dancing, and the music of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, rap singer Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, and Sarah Vaughan.

“About 6 or 7 years ago, I sat down and talked to my grandmother about her life way back when. My work at that point was autobiographical, sort of performance-arty, about being African American, and (about) trying to treat difficult issues, such as self-hatred and denial of the culture, with humor and respect.”

“When I started talking with her I realized the parallels--that obviously those issues are timeless. She dealt with losing people she loved to oppression and not wanting to be black. I got inspired and decided to make her the center of a work, which grew into seven works that follow different parts of her life. ‘Colored Children’ is about her early life.”

Rousseve said “Colored Children” was a breakthrough for him. His earlier work in the series of dances was “simply about racial oppression,” whereas this piece moved into a search for hope and hopefulness in spite of oppression, (for) human dignity, love, and spirituality, “things we can’t lose, that can’t be taken away.”

The title comes from the text, which Rousseve wrote in response to his grandmother’s stories and which he narrates in performance. He explained, “They didn’t have anything. They were very poor. They had nothing except themselves, though she had this astonishing ability to fly, which meant her spirit could soar, even though she would pick cotton until her hands would bleed.”

Affable and articulate, Rousseve talks easily about his years of self-hatred and internalized oppression that caused him to reject his grandmother and his own cultural heritage.

“The search for self-dignity is a lifelong thing. There’s an epidemic of self-hatred among African Americans. But I think a lot of issues that black people deal with are human issues. Most people I know suffer from low self-esteem. Trying to recoup that is a lifelong journey.

“My grandmother--when I was growing up I thought, ‘Oh god, she’s fat and black and uneducated,’ and what I realized once I stopped and looked at her and listened to what she had to say, she was probably the most evolved human being I may ever meet.

“So I think looking at our history and taking that as a point of pride rather than shame is important. And saying, yes, my grandmother was the grandchild of a slave but she was an incredible human being, and no longer being ashamed of that and putting it on the stage--this is who I am.

“I want to reclaim my culture and my history.”

Not all blacks are comfortable putting that history on stage, Rousseve said, although most are supportive, “especially older people,” because they want their stories told and passed on from generation to generation “as a way to build pride.”

Rousseve is not passionate about debates concerning whether there is such a thing as black dance and whether one should have a festival of black choreography, issues that have been raised in previous BCM panel discussions and may come up again during the symposiums scheduled around the programs here. BCM does not attempt to define a category such as “black dance,” but it presents choreographers of contemporary dance who are black, to highlight the contributions African Americans have made and continue to make to American choreography.

“Some people have trouble with the idea of a black dance festival, but I don’t,” Rousseve said. “There’s even a debate about whether black dance exists at all. This project is worthwhile because it shows a wide spectrum of black dance.

“Last year, especially in San Francisco, the work (on the entire BCM program) was really varied, but there was still a connection or essence to the work that was specifically African American, dealing with oppression.”

That essence, he said, is an immediacy, an emotional quality, which he believes is part of his culture, and which defines black dance more so than particular dance steps.

Rousseve also underscored the importance of BCM for showing that black dance is “not all Alvin Ailey-ish,” as he put it.

“Some of that can be wonderful and that’s certainly legitimate, but it’s not all of black dance.”

His own work, which he calls experimental, includes nudity, deals with sexuality and AIDS, incorporates acting and literary narrative, is structured in short scenes like a film, and sometimes has more theater in it than all-out dancing.

These aspects reflect his personal life. He studied drama and dance at Princeton. After he graduated, he moved to New York and danced with modern dance companies and, to support himself, acted in soap operas.

“Once I started creating my own work, it seemed natural that the acting, the theatricality and text, would be in with the dance. For better or worse, it’s my voice, a mixed media voice. Each strengthens the other.”

Rousseve said that even if he had landed better acting jobs than the soaps, he would still be incorporating dance into his work. “Movement can take you to a visceral place that words can’t.” The dancers in “Colored Children” are women, because the work as a whole “is a woman’s story and issues of sexism are as important to the piece as issues of racism,” he explained.

Thelma Arceneaux died last April, but she had seen “Colored Children” on video, along with other sections of “Pull Your Head to the Moon” before she died. She was thrilled, honored, and proud of the way her grandson told her story, Rousseve said. She had no problem with the fact that Rousseve revealed her hard life in a one-room shack with a dirt floor.

“She got it. She understood what I am trying to do.”