Fallen Heroes, Rising Stars: A Juneteenth Celebration Through Dance
494 9th St., Oakland
June 22, 2024
On a closed-off block of 9th Street in Old Oakland, even the sun seemed to dance on our shoulders. Just around the corner from Broadway, there were a hundred or so of us gathered outside, sitting on chairs and picnic blankets, soaking up the warmth in the audience and onstage, taking in the “Juneteenth Celebration Through Dance,” sponsored by the Grown Women Dance Collective.
As I watched an impressive lineup of dancers from Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, Dance Theater of Harlem, Broadway dancers, and other dance companies, I didn’t expect to be moved to tears at how the human body can express history, pain, joy, and hope through movement. But on this afternoon in June, three days after the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, that’s exactly what happened.
Fallen Heroes, Rising Stars: A Juneteenth Celebration Through Dance
In between the dancers’ sets, a large screen onstage displayed a rotating lineup of historical figures and celebrated Black entertainers from all eras: Harriet Tubman, Beyonce, Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, Gil Scott-Heron, Heavy D, Run DMC, TLC, Natalie Cole. Etta James flashed on the screen as her voice sweetly crooned “At Last”: At last/ My lonely days are over/ And life is like a song.
What a way to capture the mood. These sweet melodies coursing through loudspeakers on the streets of Oakland on a gorgeous summer day felt like a song growing in our hearts.
The dance performances themselves brought the emotional weight of what we were celebrating to the forefront.
A woman in a flowing, bright orange top swirled to Little Richard’s “Freedom Blues” pouring out of the speakers, her arms stretching out as if to embrace the sun as the raucous soul grabbed our soul, Little Richard’s voice swooning soulfully, Everybody everybody everybody’s gotta be free/ Oh yes! The dancer communicated the refrain with her movements, twirling and spinning herself towards the front of the stage, then dancing in exuberant swishes down the aisle. Having arrived midway through her performance, I thought she was just an enthusiastic audience member before I realized she was actually one of the performers. Maybe that was her intent, that we aren’t just observers of this artform and its celebration of life but participants as well. For us to reflect on the weight of this holiday, we’re also doing our part to participate in it.
In another performance, the O’Jays classic soul song “This Air I Breathe” bumped through the crowd as a dancer in a surgical mask and a T‑shirt that read “Long COVID” on the front swooped her arms while sitting in a chair onstage. She was hooked up to a prop meant to look like a ventilator machine as the lyrics took on a new meaning: Don’t they care/ What’s happenin’ to the air? Oakland health statistics flashed on the screen behind her, and audio interviews with local children talking about pollution in the city and their health problems played over the song, until the dancer finally collapsed onstage at the end.
More dancers engaged the crowd with a performance involving police tape rolled out through the crowd as two musicians played live, percussive beats with their hands on African drums. The powerful punch of Gil-Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” began to play as the dancers spread out through the crowd, solemnly holding signs that read “Voting Rights,” “Education,” and “Unequal Access.” The revolution will not be re-run, brothers/ The revolution will be live.
By the end of the afternoon’s performances, I was stirred to silence, a canopy of history and pain and love and truth spreading across my soul. Then Aretha’s voice rang out, singing at the top of her voice, A change is gonna come. Images of Black trailblazers continued to flash on the screen, no dancers onstage or in the crowd, just the images of people to be grateful for, from Harriet Tubman to Nina Simone to Barack Obama. A full-circle moment felt catalyzed within me at the end of the event. The grateful crowd dispersed, the weight of fear, sadness, love, pride, and hope expressed and distilled in an afternoon under the Oakland sun.
