By Ally Tayag Ricarte
PearlArts Studios
In 2017, Staycee and Herman revisited their love for jazz vocalist, composer, and civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln in their production ABBEY: In The Red. Rather than pull directly from raw compositions of Lincoln’s music, the production concentrates on the intricacies of her voice and historical influence during the Jazz age with a contemporary arrangement of her work. STAYCEE PEARL dance project was accompanied in the August Wilson Center by a live quintet of woodwinds, strings and electronics curated by Herman Pearl and musical arrangements by saxophonist Ben Opie. However, they didn’t just stop there.
Vocalist Anqwenique Kinsel performing “Driva Man” at the August Wilson Center in 2017.
Flowing reds, massive mesh hoop skirts and architectural head pieces amplified the movement and sounds in ABBEY: In the Red. Pittsburgh-based fashion designer Tereneh Idia and visual artist Atticus Adams brought their modern thinking to the table with their costume designs and observations of Lincoln’s influence on Black Americans in American culture.
“Historical, ancestral and present is how I viewed Abbey. I thought about Abbey Lincoln the woman, Abbey the singer, Abbey the musician, Abbey the actor,” Idia said. “But then Abbey is also present in every Black woman. In every Black man. In anyone who has been oppressed but also the joy of her and the grit of her voice, and grace.”
Adams also traced the parallels of Lincoln’s stories to the historical and ongoing resistance for freedom and equality in fashion and beyond. “Visually, I was inspired by the large-hooped skirts of the 19th century which I find beautiful - but, they trapped the wearer in yards of impractical fabric and health-stealing corsets,” Adams said.
(Left to right) Rayne Jones, Jessica Marino Mitcham, and Ronnell Kitt in ABBEY: In the Red.
Exploring Lincoln’s multi-faceted role during the Jazz Age shaped the production with a dynamic conversation between fashion and performing arts. “When you think of everyday clothing, the garments we wear, everyone is dancer in their life. Their body is the form, the sculpture or the building,” Idia said. “The dance is how we move the soundtrack, voices, music, and our steps in our life. The costumes we wear every day. That is life.” Intention is the glue to create the relationship between fashion, sculpture, dance and sound, Adams said.
This necessary dialogue between distinct art forms continues to reinforce collaboration within STAYCEE PEARL dance project and other artists. We cannot create one art form without another because they inform each other in order to move in larger ways, Idia said.
For Adams, this production was uncharted territory on an identity level. “What did I as a middle-aged white man really know about the struggles of being a woman, let alone an African American?” Adams said. “But, I am gay and I do know about another type of struggle. I decided I could come to the project with empathy and a willingness to learn and bring what I could to the table. In the end, I trusted Staycee's wonderful vision and direction for ABBEY: In the Red and created something new and for me unexpected.”
BONUS SECTION: Q&A WITH ALLY TAYAG RICARTE
ABBEY: In The Red was also the first show stage managed by current production manager, marketing associate, and education director Ally Tayag Ricarte, who had recently moved to Pittsburgh at the time. During the production, Ally rediscovered her personal relationship with dance and the role of performance in her life.
LaTrea Rembert (left) and Ronnell Kitt (right) perform ABBEY: In The Red at the August Wilson Center in 2017.
What do people not know about stage management that you wished they knew?
Stage managers run by working smart, not hard, so everyone can perform their job at 150%. The goal is to provide the best performance we can and one of the ways to guarantee that is to ensure that each member has the proper headspace, time, and essentials to deliver the director's vision as closely as they can from the first to the last performance. Also we just make sure people stay in their lanes so no one is confused.
You have a background in dance and art history. What role does this play in your life and career as a stage manager?
For most people both of these disciplines taught me how to be meticulous, self-sufficient, and how to critically think. It gives me the vocabulary to be responsible and intentional about what projects benefit my community the most and what is representative of my experiences. It has taught me to thread mindfulness in my life, prioritize the narratives we have yet to hear, and appreciate when you don't have the answer to everything.
Additionally, dance and art history have helped me in memorization and translating movement during the technical process. It’s rewarding to be able to use dance vocabulary while taking blocking notes, and communicating with dancers and the director.
This was your very first dance production you stage managed. What was that like?
I consider it to be a milestone. I had been working in theater for about four years by that time. I was excited to see what would happen if I went back to my roots in dance. ABBEY: In the Red had as many moving parts as a big production ballet, but instead of classical dance, we had multidimensional modern dance, music, costumes and lighting with intelligent and ambitious artists. I was nervous at first (one of our dancers was injured right before our premiere so we had to do extra rehearsals) but by the end of the show, I felt empowered to learn there were folks like me who appreciated and created that type of work.
STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos is celebrating its 10th anniversary and the birthday of our cofounder/choreographer Staycee Pearl all of May with a month-long retrospective to honor the company’s history of innovative dance, multimedia experiences, and meaningful collaborations. In honor of our 10th anniversary, we’ll be sharing a series of blog posts dedicated to giving you an inside look at our productions through the decade.
If you’re just tuning into our anniversary series, be sure to check out our Anniversary retrospective series here: