Lula Washington‘s concert is Friday, June 8 @ 8:30 pm at the newly renovated John Anson Ford Theatre complex, 2580 Chauenga Boulevard East, Hollywoood CA 90068. Discount tickets are available by using the code: LULAFRIEND. The Box Office number is 323-461-3673.
Olga Garay, interim Executive Director of the Ford, funded LWDT to secure the new works from Kyle Abraham and David Rousseve; and to get an update from Rennie Harris of his previous work for Lula, called “Reign.”
“The idea was all Olga’s,” said Lula. “She called one day and offered this to us. It was a wonderful surprise.”
Olga said she got the idea when she realized that Rousseve, Abraham, and Harris, had all been in Los Angeles teaching at UCLA. She thought it would be fantastic to connect them with Lula, whose company has been a local icon since 1980.
For its Ford show, LWDT will perform David Rousseve’s “Enough?”, in which two dancers peform with increasing furiousity after an unnecessary police killing. Rousseve asks if dancing about it is even “enough?” of a response to the situation.
Kyle Abraham set his work, “Hallowed?’ on Lula’s company. The work is his personal favorite and is the favorite of his dancers as well, he said. It is set to Aretha Franklin’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and is performed before a backdrop of lynchings. This work captures emotion through a scarcity of movement, and a swell on internal paid that comes out in powerful, but minimal movement.
Reign, by Rennie Harris, explores the path of a girl who is lost and homeless but who finds safety in a church that loves to dance and shout.
Tamica Washington-Miller’s “There Is Always Tomorrow” looks at personal responsibility in seeing the world as it really is, or, in a fantasy way through rose colored glasses.
Lula’s Open Your Eyes” makes a plea for a better, more inclusive, loving, and accepting world.
The concert happens during the “Dance USA” conference in Los Angeles. Lula and Erwin Washington will receive Dance USA’s “Champion Award” for their pioneering leadership in local dance over the last 38 years.
The company last danced at the Ford in 2013 in a shared concert with Complexions Ballet from New York. Lula Washington Dance Theatre has always augmented her own choreography with works by pioneering African-American choreographers
