A scene from I’m My Brothers Keeper (Photo courtesy Brian Guilliaux)
RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com
Next weekend, Bruce Wood Dance Dallas will close its 15th season with Echoes. Deemed a celebration of love, strength and legacy, the program features four works with two world premieres. In addition, the program will feature another one of Bruce Wood’s masterpieces that also feels appropriate for the beginning of Pride month.
“I’m My Brother’s Keeper” is Wood’s groundbreaking masterwork that explores the emotional dynamics among fathers, brothers and other male-centric relationships — but also reminds men of their power, vulnerability, and deep connection to one another.
“This dance is about kindness, empathy, fearlessness and ultimately, forgiveness. It is our nature as men to hide ourselves in our ideas of masculinity. We all know it. We all see it. We all do it. The heroes of our story are the ones who broke through and explored with me the nature of what it is to be a man,” Bruce Wood stated in company notes about creating the piece.
Echoes will run June 6-8 at Moody Performance Hall. The night will feature special guests and one original artist who performed at the premiere of “Keeper.”
“I’m so excited about coming back to Dallas for this, and I’m so honored that he reached out to me the first time and that I was asked to come back,” musician Gary Floyd said from his Reno home. “Bruce reached out for me to sing ‘Nature Boy,’ which appears a couple times in the piece.
The multigenerational “Keeper” premiered in 2012 where Floyd was one of three guest performers, alongside Larry Lane and Tom Fowler. That moment was profound for Floyd, and more than a decade later, he ponders how it will resonate for him now.
“Today we deal with patriarchy and toxic masculinity, but I think it will be nice to be reminded of the intimacy that can exist between men,” he said. “I was a different person in 2012, but I think it’s such a powerful piece, it will be interesting to do this again.”
Floyd was a staple in the local Dallas music scene before relocating to Reno, where he now has a musical residence at the city’s Center for Spiritual Living. He’s working on a new album but is ready to revisit his old stomping grounds.
“I’ll hang out with my bestie, Denise Lee,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends I haven’t seen. I love Dallas and just can’t wait to absorb the energy of this show.”
He added that while the relationships ascribe to familial ones between sons and fathers and brothers, that he, as a gay man, can interpret the intimacy into something more.
“This piece touches on the sacred masculine. Because of my perspective in life, and this is an all-male piece, it does make for interesting visuals and there is a sensuality to it that Bruce brought. But also, it’s an empowering reflection with some melancholy, however you look at it,” he said.
As with the case for many dances, the performance of “Keeper” can be open to interpretation. This makes sense anyway to company member Weaver Rhodes. For him, Wood had an intention with the piece, but as newer dancers with newer language come to the piece, “Keeper” has also evolved.
“The father/son part is the most defined, but the rest could be open to interpretation. Bruce had this idea when he created the piece with the original cast,” he said. “Not everyone dancing may be living by these ‘rules’ so they bring their own selves to his work. It’s great to see other people’s approach to it.”
A member since 2019, Weaver performed the piece with original member Larry Layne in the father/son roles in 2020. The piece premiered at the Joyce Theater in New York on the 2020 American Dance Platform.
“Keeper” has become a favorite for Rhodes. The piece spoke to him in a personally profound way. After graduating Booker T. Washington, he moved to New York to pursue his dance career. A health scare brought him home to Dallas and ultimately to Bruce Wood.
“I was diagnosed with cancer, and I came home for treatment. When I was able to start getting fit and dance again, I took classes at Bruce Wood. I was coming from a weak place at that point,” he said. “So then to join and then perform this, it was enjoyable to feel like myself and feel strong again for this really cool piece.”
Rhodes saw this as a piece about strength equally as much as about tenderness.
“Having gone through this frail moment, I can bring both sides of that in me to put into this piece,” he said.
The out dancer agrees with Floyd on how the gay perspective can add to the performance’s intent. With all male-presenting dancers, the dynamics can lean into a queer sensibility as much as a family one.
For this performance, Rhodes performs with fellow company members Cole Vernon and Elliott Trahan.
So, a throuple?
“That can be one way to see it,” he said with a laugh. “But really it’s about this caring, tender approach to how men can support each other.”
Echoes will also feature “Dvorák Serenade” by frequent Bruce Wood Dance Dallas collaborator Lar Lubovitch in its world premiere, “Love Songs,” by BWDD alums Kimi Nikaidoh, Jennifer Mabus and Nycole Ray and “Make Love, Not War” by Ben Stevenson, O.B.E. former artistic director for Texas Ballet Theater from 2003-2022. ■
For tickets, visit BruceWoodDance.org.