Research Catalog

Interview with Dyane Harvey-Salaam

Title: Interview with Dyane Harvey-Salaam, 2019/ Conducted by Stephanie Berry on November 29 and December 10, 2019, in New York City (N.Y.); Producer: Dance Oral History Project
Author: Harvey, Dyane
Publication: 2019

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections Dance to submit a request in person.	Audio	Supervised use	*MGZMT 3-3493	Performing Arts Research Collections Dance

Details

Additional Authors

Berry, Stephanie

Description

Online resource (3 streaming files [approximately 6 hr.]) : digital +

Summary

Streaming file 1, November 29, 2019 (approximately one hour and 57 minutes). Dyane Harvey-Salaam speaks to Stephanie Berry about her preference for the term "Giving Thanks Day" for the Thanksgiving Day holiday; her use of both "Harvey" and "Harvey-Salaam" in her professional life; Forces of Nature [Dance Theatre], which was co-founded by her husband Abdel R. Salaam; her clothes, in particular as a means of self-expression; her view of herself as a dancer; dancing with George Faison at the Delacorte [Theater]; seeing Arthur Mitchell and Maria Tallchief on television as the moment that she first realized she wanted to be a dancer; her early dance training, in particular, with her longtime ballet teacher Marilyn Ramsey in Schenectady, New York; how Ramsey helped her develop as a dancer; reminisces about performing in recitals as a ballet student; some of her more memorable performances: in Astor Johnson's work SHE, when she was 23; in George Faison's The Pearl Fisher and in Abdel Salaam's Coming forth by day; her drawing on personal issues to inform her dancing even when still a student; her family background; her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement through the activism of her mother and the Unitarian Church; how the pressure to press her hair for a ballet recital affected her feelings about ballet; her decision to pursue a career in dance immediately upon graduation rather than attend college; dancing for Paul Sanasardo at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, in particular her difficulty with [Martha] Graham technique; seeing Alvin Ailey and his company [Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater] for the first time and taking a class in [Lester] Horton technique, when she was 17; an anecdote about telling Alvin Ailey that she wanted to join his company and how this resulted in her moving to New York to study with Sanasardo; the many professional dancers who took class with Sanasardo; some of the people she worked with initially, including Margie [Margaret] Beals and Miguel Godreau; her time with Movements Black [Dance Repertory Theatre] including a performance anecdote; some of the dancers in the company including Dolores (Dede) Vanison; Roberta Pikser, in particular her introducing her to Eleo Pomare; reasons she was drawn to Pomare; the continuing challenge of understanding his thought processes and his work; Pomare's sudden death and some of the ways in which it affected her as an artist.
Streaming file 2, November 29, 2019 (approximately one hour and 48 minutes). Dyane Harvey-Salaam speaks to Stephanie Berry about her diet; her experience touring with Eleo Pomare's company at Festac (Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture), in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977; performing Pomare's work Roots at the Festival, in particular how she thinks the non-American audience may have perceived the political and social content of the work; continuing to work with Pomare after leaving his company to focus on Forces of Nature and her daughter, Khisekh; Southern Gothic, which Pomare created for her; the factors and influences that have contributed to her consciousness of race and political issues including reading Alex Hayley's Roots [:the saga of an American family] and debates with her husband; Ntozake Shange and performing in her (Off-Broadway) work Spell #7; her first theatrical (that is not pure dance) experience: performing in The Great MacDaddy, with the Negro Ensemble [Company]; her experience as a swing in the Broadway show The Wiz; other engagements she took on while in The Wiz: dancing with Otis Sallid and performing Pomare's work Roots in a tribute to Syvilla Fort; years later performing in a documentary about Fort (Ayoka Chenzira's Syvilla Fort: They dance to her drum); at Berry's request, describing in a few words her experiences in each of The Great MacDaddy, The Wiz, Timbuktu!, and Spell #7; her experience working as a choreographer with Amparo Chigui Santiago on the first revival of Spell #7 including her research on minstrelsy; creating movement for actors including Reggie Montgomery in an African Company production of Richard III; how she feels about calling herself a choreographer; Berry tells an anecdote about firing Abdel Salaam and hiring Harvey to create the movement for My Harlem 'Tis of Thee; Harvey speaks about the lasting influence of Pomare on her choreography; learning the technique required for the traditional African dance-influenced choreography of Forces of Nature including the Kwanzaa-based work Nguzo Saba and (Abdel Salaam's) Coming forth by day; her current position as artistic director at Forces of Nature; her role as a warrior princess in Coming forth by day, in particular its personal significance; Joan Miller and her work Pass Fe White including the reasons she was initially uncomfortable performing this work; outlines in chronological order the various companies and choreographers she has worked with, beginning with Movements Black and including Alpha Omega [Theatrical Dance Company], Alvin Ailey II, Eleo Pomare, George Faison Universal Dance Experience, Otis Sallid New Art Ensemble, DanceBrazil, and Forces of Nature.
Streaming file 3, December 10, 2019 (approximately two hours and 16 minutes). Dyane Harvey-Salaam speaks to Stephanie Berry about her state of mind regarding dance at various ages and times in her life; how her relationship with her husband, Abdel Salaam, and performing his choreography has contributed to her artistic and personal growth; for example, how working with a live musician, [Forces of Nature's] musical director KweYao Agyapon increased her awareness of the relationship between music and movement; the influence of this awareness on her modern dance performances, in particular in Eleo Pomare's Roots; her pregnancy; the birth of her daughter Khisekh; how giving birth affected her intellectually and spiritually; "American Experience and Dance Practices of the Diaspora," the class she has been teaching at Princeton University including the curriculum and the students; her initial reluctance to teach; how working with Judy Covan, a Pilates teacher, led her to begin teaching on her own initiative; teaching dance in an academic setting, including at Lehman College, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and Hofstra [University]; her goals as a teacher; how and why she conducts her classes as she does, including illustrative anecdotes about individual students; Ze'eva Cohen, including her role in bringing Dyane to teach at Princeton; the process from being uncomfortable with teaching to embracing it; the composition of her students at the various institutions where she has taught; how she views herself as a teacher; her daughter's relationship with dance including her performing as a child with Dyane in Salaam's Coming forth by day; her putative advice to young dancers who feel disillusioned with the dance world; some of her sources of inspiration: the theater, science fiction, and the works of Ntozake Shange including her essay collection lost in language and sound [originally published in 2011]; the biography of Hemsley Winfield [Hemsley Winfield, the forgotten pioneer of modern dance]; motherhood as an additional source of inspiration; some political and social problems that particularly concern her; how she has explored such issues in dance including a work on Harriet Tubman; the performances that she considers the three peaks of her career as a dancer; her choreography, including working with actors in plays as compared with choreographing for dancers; the process of creating new works; some theatrical works she has choreographed; the current place of dance in her life, in particular her recent return to performing; advice for up and coming dancers.

Alternative Title

Dance Oral History Project.
Dance Audio Archive.

Subject

Genre/Form

Sound recordings.
Oral histories.

Note

Interview with Dyane Harvey-Salaam conducted by Stephanie Berry on November 29 and December 10, 2019, in New York City (N.Y.), for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3493
As of March 2023, the audio recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The audio files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming.
Sound quality is excellent.
Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Funding (note)

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Source (note)

0# PAMI;

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3493

OCLC

1343726075

Author

Harvey, Dyane, interviewee.

Title

Interview with Dyane Harvey-Salaam, 2019/ Conducted by Stephanie Berry on November 29 and December 10, 2019, in New York City (N.Y.); Producer: Dance Oral History Project

Imprint

2019

Playing Time

060000

Type of Content

spoken word

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

audio

Type of Carrier

online resource

volume

Digital File Characteristics

audio file

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Event

Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2019, November 29 and December 10 New York (N.Y.).

Funding

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Connect to:

Added Author

Berry, Stephanie, interviewer.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3493

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