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Choreographers break out in 'NO BOUNDARIES'
David Lyman, Cincinnati Enquirer
March 20, 2009

Perhaps it was Gesel Mason's destiny to be on the stage.

When the nurses asked her mother to name her newborn, she said "Giselle." She wasn't thinking of the ballet. Rather, that was the name of her favorite singer, Gisele MacKenzie. No one was sure how to spell it, though. So thanks to a spelling-challenged New Orleans nurse, "Gisele" became "Gesel."

Spelling error or not, Gesel Mason has made the most of the name.

Dancer, choreographer, artistic director, educator, producer - Mason performs "No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers" at the Aronoff Center this weekend as a part of Contemporary Dance Theater's Guest Artist Series.

"No Boundaries" is an evening-length performance made up of solo dances created by notable African-American choreographers. But when Mason concocted the idea more than a decade ago, she had no idea exactly what she'd end up with.

"The whole project just evolved," said Mason, speaking by phone from Salt Lake City, where she had just been awarded a distinguished alumni award from the University of Utah's College of Fine Arts. Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan was also honored.

Mason didn't have a grand plan of what choreographers had to be part of the package. She started by approaching choreographers with whom she had some connection.

"For a while, it was like Christmas," says Mason. "I was shocked - people actually wrote me back."

First was Bebe Miller. The two had crossed paths when Miller set a dance for a company Mason was dancing with, Washington D.C.'s Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Then came David Roussève, a renowned choreographer and member of UCLA's dance department.

"It was really thrilling when they agreed to do works for me," says Mason.

So she kept going. There was Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women. Reggie Wilson. Andrea Woods. And modern dance pioneer Donald McKayle. To round things off, Mason added a couple of pieces of her own.

"I'm really happy with what I ended up with," said Mason. "I'm not sure I could have planned it this well. They are all so different from one another."

And that, in many ways, was the point of the entire project. In the dance world, it's not uncommon to hear someone referred to as a "black choreographer." Nothing about the style of dance or the philosophical roots of the works. Just the race of the choreographer. The suggestion is that race alone defines the choreography. It's a little like suggesting that George Balanchine and Martha Graham's dances bear some similarity because both were white.

So what Mason ended up with is a small repository of solo works that don't so much demonstrate sameness as they do the extraordinary stylistic and aesthetic range of African-American choreographers.

Empowered by the success she's had so far, Mason intends to broaden the scope of the program. She'd like to add works by Bill T. Jones and Ron Brown and Diane McIntyre and more.

"There's just so much out there," says Mason. "And to say that it's 'black dance' doesn't begin to describe it. Yes - all of the choreographers have that in common. But that's just about the only thing. To some people, 'black dance' means that it is based in the Horton tradition. Or that it is derived from Alvin Ailey. But there is so much more that is happening. And I want to be sure people have a chance to see it."

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090320/ENT/903200317/1176/ENT