“Let’s see if we can do this” may not be succinct enough to become a motto, but it nails Robinson’s ethos. Richardson/The Denver Post) The Fire Goddess and Stravinsky In early summer, Robinson and Malik Robinson, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s executive director and Cleo Parker Robinson’s son, called Prestø from Hawaii and said, “Let’s see if we can do this.” Cleo Parker Robinson, center, chats with Norwegian choreographer Thomas Talawa Prestø as he works with her dancers during a training session at the dance company’s Denver studios on July 19, 2023. As if we needed the nudge: In late March, Robinson was among the five co-founders of the International Association of Blacks in Dance awarded the National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony. That the Norwegian choreographer was in Denver working with Robinson’s dancers serves as a reminder of Robinson’s stature as a global dance world figure. Prestø’s piece - scored with Marley’s socially reckoning ballad “War” but also songs from German singer Ayo and Jamaican singer Etana - nods to notions of resistance and resilience. It leans, however, into a folklore tradition different than the Slavic lore of the European classic: that of Hawaii. Her piece is set to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet symphony of the same name. This weekend, Robinson’s “Firebird” and Prestø’s “Catch Ah Fire” arrive at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House as part of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s fall show.
For the fall dance show “Firebird,” Cleo Parker Robinson Dance is collaborating with Thomas Talawa Prestø. Norwegian choreographer Thomas Talawa Prestø is pictured at the Cleo Parker Robinson dance company in Denver as he works with dancers in a training session on July 19, 2023. And, in doing so, she offers Denver a glimpse at a broader, richer world. Of course, Robinson, a creative force as well as a community builder, would offer the younger choreographer a stage.
CLEO H20 ARCHIVE
For Prestø, a magician of movement and memory, the Black body is itself an archive of the ancestral as well as a transporter of contemporary ideas about liberation. So, this is what creative collaboration can look like among the descendants of the African diaspora. The audience was warming up, too, offering whoops and yelps.
Meanwhile, dance doyenne Robinson stood nearby, smiling as she walked along the wall panning with her iPhone camera and documenting the open rehearsal of “Catch Ah Fire.”Īs her dancers rehearsed beside Prestø’s dance instructors, a faint sheen of perspiration began to glisten on their chests, arms, and foreheads. Prestø stood with his hands on his hips, aware that the dancers were still finding their way through his system of ancestral and contemporary movements, called the Talawa Technique. Bob Marley played over the speaker system in the rehearsal room of the Five Points home of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. On a summer afternoon, Norwegian choreographer Thomas Talawa Prestø was watching as two dancers from his Oslo-based company, Tabanka Dance Ensemble, put another dance company’s artists through the paces of one of his new works. Friday, October 6th 2023 Home Page Close Menu
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