Insite

It was a dark and stormy night. No, no… that’s not right. In fact in Los Angeles, it was probably a bright and sunny day when James Cameron called choreographer Lula Washington about his movie, then still in the works, called AVATAR. Now in theaters, AVATAR tells the post-post-post-colonial story of a band of scientists and space travelers interested in taking over a new, cool planet called “Pandora.”

So what was he doing calling Lula Washington?

In fact, fair friends, Lula Washington and members of her company choreographed the body language and ritual movements of the Na’vi people in AVATAR. Which is funny because, among other things noted in this handy and certainly timely NYTimes ArtsBeat interview, Lula didn’t use email until recently and had some doubts about characters with tails. Her collaboration with James Cameron, however, was completely instrumental to the style and tone of the film, bringing a dimension of humanity to the film’s digitally rendered characters.

Lula Washington, and Lula Washington Dance Theatre join us at the Alexander Kasser Theater this weekend for an amazing celebration of thirty years of totally radical dance theater. We are so excited to have her here at the theater this weekend.

Lula’s story is amazing in every way. She grew up in the Nickerson Gardens Housing Projects in the Watts district of California (home of Simon Rodia’s Watts Tower, and the race-related 1965 Watts Riots) and worked at a skating rink, hamburger stands, and a movie theater in order to buy clothes for school. She didn’t discover dance until she was a nursing student at community college. At 22, already married to Erwin Washington, and already mother to Tamica Washington, she applied to UCLA’s dance program and was rejected. Then re-applied, unwilling to take the school’s response that she was too old to begin a career in dance, and was finally admitted.

Lula Washington went on to found one of the most influential dance companies, and dance schools, in the United States. Based in South-Central Los Angeles, Lula Washington Dance Theatre has impacted an entire community: encouraging self-respect, self-esteem, and self-worth to children and adults in the neighborhood through dance. Lula’s practice is socially and politically inspired, as she says, in this University of Southern California documentary, directed by Julie Nisargand and Jeff Canavan, Dancing Above the Street:

“I saw this in a dream. We were all talking with friends and saying ‘well, what are you going to be doing’ and I said, Well, I’m going to start a company. I’m going to start a concert, modern dance company. And I would dream about this company and I would actually see it happen. And I see that this company has a strong future now because I’ve seen it in my dreams. and I really believe that if you see it and you believe it, then it’s yours.”

Dancing Above the Street is a gem, and we’d like to extend a special shout-out to our friend Erwin Washington, for bringing the documentary footage to our attention that we’ve excerpted above.

My favorite part is watching Lula, straight-backed and standing tall, approaching kids on the sidewalk after school with flyers for her classes, saying “I want to see you in class. I want to see you, you, and you in my class.”

If you want to see how art can bring positive change to an entire community, and do it over and over again, for thirty years, look no further than Lula Washington’s life work.

Please join us in celebrating her at the Alexander Kasser Theater this weekend!

Sara Wintz is Communications Assistant in the Office of Arts & Cultural Programming at Montclair State University. Her writing has appeared on Ceptuetics and in The Poetry Project Newsletter.