2021 Catalyst Award goes to Ralph Glenmore
At our second annual SPARK event, Dance Exchange will honor someone whose contributions at and beyond Dance Exchange are immense: Ralph Glenmore—a dancer, choreographer, teacher, visual artist, and more—is the 2021 recipient of Dance Exchange’s Catalyst Award.
The Catalyst Award honors someone who has sparked meaningful dialogue, research, collaboration, stability, and risk-taking in partnership with Dance Exchange. With this award, we celebrate more than a decade of Ralph’s work with Dance Exchange. Ralph has performed in Dance Exchange work ranging from Liz Lerman’s Ferocious Beauty: Genome to Cassie Meador’s Drift and has facilitated during engagements ranging from the Bealtaine Festival in Ireland to the Dance Exchange Winter Institute in Takoma Park.
And yet, Ralph’s role as a catalyst extends far beyond his work with Dance Exchange. Ralph was a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for eight years under the direction of Alvin Ailey. He toured the world, working with choreographers Donald McKayle, Talley Beatty, and Bill T. Jones among others. He has also worked with the Lula Washington Dance Theater, Debbie Allen Dance Academy, Robinson Project and Horton Summer Intensive - Daytona Community College, the Dance Institute of Washington, American University, Dance Place, and others as an instructor, rehearsal director, stage manager and choreographer. He also served as Dance Supervisor for Disney's The Lion King Los Angeles Company.
Over the course of his career, Ralph has cultivated a sense of wonder in dance audiences around the world. He has supported vulnerability and curiosity in his fellow artists and colleagues. And he has sparked joy and courage in his students.
Since this year’s SPARK celebration will happen just before the kick off of the Dance On Festival, it is certainly fitting that Ralph, who has danced on in so many inspiring ways, is our 2021 Catalyst Awardee.
Read below for a conversation between Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Johnson Levine and Catalyst Awardee Ralph Glenmore.
To hear more from Ralph, register for free to join the Dance On Festival where Ralph will be joining a conversation with other Dance Exchange partnering artists about the importance of dancing on throughout our lives. Additionally, if you are a Dance Exchange donor or if you registered for the Dance On Festival as a Sponsor or Friend of Dance Exchange, keep an eye on your email for your invite to SPARK (5:30pm ET on Friday, May 14) to join us in celebrating Ralph.
Elizabeth Johnson Levine: So, Ralph, I got to know you...was it 15, maybe even 20 years ago?
Ralph Glenmore: Less than 13! I've only been back in D.C. for 13 years.
Elizabeth: It's been a long time! But it hasn't been as long as you've been dancing. Can you talk to us around some of your earliest memories of dance?
Ralph: Well, my first show was called Owen's Song at the D. C. Black Repertory Company. I was 19. I went and auditioned and sang “On a Clear Day” and got the job in the ensemble. But then we had to dance. I had never danced before. We had to create a storm and everyone was chaîné-ing with ribbons and I was like, "What's a chaîné?" I got in one turn a night until I could do four turns a night.
Then I went on to be a phantom student [one that took classes but wasn’t officially registered] at Duke Ellington School of the Arts. I was already at McKinley Tech and starting at Howard University on a visual arts scholarship, but I would go in at 8:00 in the morning to take ballet. I’d never had ballet before: "What is ballet?" I was kind of thick then, so my tights wouldn't fit all the way up and my shoes were too big. They just laughed at me, but I would not leave. I learned so much that first year doing ballet, modern, African dance, Horton, and Graham. They just said, "Come in." And that was my whole career. They open a door, I go in. As simple as that.
I remember auditioning for this ballet that the D.C. Black Repertory Company was going to take to a festival in Lagos, Nigeria. The ballet was of this wandering boy who came across this magical tribe. They took these magic wands and transformed me and all this. I had to jump and transform and all that. I knew nothing about safety, but I just let it go. I was just vibrating, rolling, and flinging myself all over the floor. It was a hit, and it was in EBONY magazine. I was like, "Yeah, I'm a star."
Elizabeth: That's awesome, Ralph. Incredible. So you would say that pretty much as soon as you started dancing, it pretty quickly became a central part of your life, huh? From that one show doing the chaînés to dancing with that company. But while you were dancing, you were also a visual arts student at Howard University. Can you talk about how you bring those skills and passions together? How does one art form inform the other?
Ralph: Well, I participated in several art forms—painting and vocal in the evening with the D.C. Youth Chorale. Once I joined the dance company, I went up to New York to audition for things. The Wiz, Bubbling Brown Sugar, A Raisin in the Sun. I got the Bubbling Brown Sugar tour, I would take all my art supplies with me, and I would draw in my spare time. I would draw the whole cast and all the musicians, do their portraits in the hotel and stuff like that.
It always went together. I tried to separate them once. I did dance without art and I would just be cranky all the time. Then I tried to do art without the dance and my imagination would get sterile. So I had to keep them together. Later on the art helped me with choreographing, because I could plan out the choreography. I would come up with ideas and I had to decide if I was going to choreograph it or paint that idea
Photo by Jack Mitchell. (©) Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. and Smithsonian Institution. Masazumi Chaya and Ralph Glenmore in Jennifer Muller's Speeds (1985) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
When I danced with the Ailey Company I would research all of the roles I was given to perform in the way an actor would. I would give back stories to my characters or non characters. I danced the role of Jimmy Hendrix in Alvin Ailey’s Precipice at The Metropolitan Opera house. This was a big deal. This is when I started storyboarding my work. This helped a lot.
Elizabeth: That's great. I know from being in the studio with you that you have sparked so much in movers and makers of all ages. But we're interested to know about the people who've had the most impact on you throughout your career. Who have been those people?
Ralph: There are so many people. I know the first is my mother. It was all her idea, kind of. She would give me those slogans like, "Nothing beats a failure but a try," and we would watch movie musicals all the time. It was always, "Broadway, Broadway. When you get on Broadway you're going to do this and that." So she set me up for that, and then I used all that to keep going.
Once I started dancing, the teachers influenced me a lot. Charles Augins, Michelle Murray, Edith Williams, and Jimmy Thurston. Once I moved to New York ... Oh, there's so many people. I had this one teacher, Kazuko Hirabayashi. She was at Julliard, and she was with me the whole time. She would challenge me. For example, I would do a soutenu and second jump, and she had this big long stick and she would get under me: "Jump. Don't come down. Don't. Don't come down." If you challenge me I'll go for it, and I became a jumper. She was a powerhouse. I loved her.
Then I had another teacher named Finis Jhung. I was in a rehearsal in the Ailey Company and I kept messing up the double tours and nobody would give me advice, and that's when I learned, "Oh, you have to come in knowing." So I went to Finis to brush up my technique outside of the studio and the company and the school. He had a way of teaching me to dance and to hold on and to improve.
Who else? Alvin Ailey. He was like a big brother. He would give me projects to do, like paint the whole school. Paint the whole school, studios, downstairs, offices, everything.
Elizabeth: That's a nice hustle if I've ever seen one! "Dance, dance, dance. Now go paint the office."
Ralph: I painted everything, and everybody was on summer break, but they didn't tell me they was going to turn the air off. I was like, "Oh, we're painting in here with no air." But I got it done.
Then my colleagues, the dancers, they would always pull me to the side when I did crazy stuff. One time, I was like a club rat, and I would go to the club. And at one point, the thing was to wear feathers clipped to your hair. I thought I could get on the airplane on tour with that. They pulled me to the side and snatched this off, pulled this up, put a tie on. "Uh-uh. You're not embarrassing us like that." So they gave me tips and helped me out. We helped each other.
Then the choreographers, we got along, except one. It's always one. That was Bill T. Jones. He called me “Little Man" so I called him Gomer. That was our arm-wrestle. Little Man versus Gomer. But eventually we were alright, because I liked the choreography and his artistic approach and we would hang out at some of the same places in the Village in New York
Elizabeth: So you were in New York, but you're from the Washington, D.C. area. What happened when you came back to D.C?
Ralph: Well, I went looking for work. My first job was at Arena Stage as a crew member. Then they closed for renovation and I found another job at Dance Institute of Washington. Then Melanie George offered me a position at American University. After that I went over to Duke Ellington, reunited. Then the Jones-Haywood Dance School, and then eventually the Washington Ballet. Everybody found out I was here and started pulling me in, "Can you teach this class and this class and this class?" It was exciting; at each school, everyone was doing something different. So when I came to Dance Exchange I was like, "Oh.”
Elizabeth: Tell us a little bit about that—how did you come to Dance Exchange?
Ralph: Deborah Riley over at Dance Place introduced me to Dance Exchange, but Peter DiMuro took me under his wing. He brought me in to watch the rehearsal of Liz Lerman’s Small Dances About Big Ideas. That was amazing. I was like, "Yeah. This is storytelling on another level. I'm in. I'm in."
Elizabeth: Yeah. Wow. I hadn't put all the pieces together that that was the first project that you did with us.
Ralph: Then you were this exotic girl with these blonde dreads.
Elizabeth: I did have those, didn't I?
Ralph: I was like, "What is going ..." And then Cassie, she had that flaming red hair and just throwing it everywhere. The men were men and the multi-generational component was a plus. I was like, "Okay. I'm in." You all challenged me when you would say, "Okay, do what you feel, just what you feel. How do you feel when you do this?" And, "Write it out." Then I would do what I know how to do with Broadway and Ailey and all that. "That's too much. Do less Broadway." It was hilarious.
Photo by Jori Ketten. Ralph Glenmore in Cassie Meador’s An Act of Stitch and Stone (2008) Dance Exchange
Elizabeth: I wasn't there, but tell me a little bit about going to Ireland with Dance Exchange.
Ralph: Ireland... Oh my gosh. There were two major things happening to me in that place. Well, three. And the first were the trees. The trees were so amazing. I was so hypnotized by the trees and they just kept calling me and I kept going toward all these trees. It was like, what's that movie? Game of Thrones.
The second thing was this guy who was with the group we were working with. A very quiet and expressive guy, but I could just feel him. Something about him I could just feel and I couldn't stop crying. "What is this? Who is this person?" They would share the folk songs and everything, the women in the group. They were older, and they would share all of that old traditional song and things. Then when he started I just started crying. And I never figured out why, but he was a blessing.
But the worst part of it, I was called the N-word so many times. I've never been called that word so many times in my whole life.
Elizabeth: In Ireland?
Ralph: In Ireland.
Elizabeth: In like 2008?
Ralph: Around the corner, at the store, on bicycles. I'm like, "Oh. Oh, I get it. I see why you don't want to take my money. Oh, we're doing the South thing. All right."
Elizabeth: Wow, Ralph. I'm sorry that that happened to you.
Ralph: Yeah, but I kept it to myself. I didn't want to tarnish the event.
Elizabeth: I tell you that speaks to some kind of perseverance there, but you shouldn't have to do it.
Ralph: Yeah. "Where did this come from? How did you all learn this? All right. That's on you all. I'm over here with the real people."
Photo by George Hagegeorge. Ralph Glenmore in Cassie Meador’s Drift (2008) Dance Exchange
Elizabeth: So you've had a lot of different kinds of experiences with Dance Exchange, between being in Small Dances About Big Ideas and going to Ireland. I remember one time suddenly getting thrown into a Millennium Stage performance for Cassie Meador’s Drift with you, and the shopping carts. You remember that? You've been a part of Winter Institute. So can you tell us what are some of your most memorable experiences with Dance Exchange?
Ralph: There was this one time we were working on Liz’s Ferocious Beauty: Genome. That big whale comes up over at the end. I'm like, "Oh my God." But it was something there. I was going through something real bad, and it just pulled me out. Something about that pulled me, saved my life. It brought me out of a deep, deep funk. I felt alive again.
Then the shopping cart one—Drift—that was one of those like, "Uh, we don't know if we want you to be Broadway or just regular." Cassie let me do it my way, and it got a good review.
Those are my major ones, and talking with Liz Lerman, learning from her and you. Just learning a different way to approach dance. That was refreshing. I learned a lot.
Elizabeth: We learn a lot from you, Ralph. I'm not going to just use past tense there, Ralph. We learn a lot from you. You celebrate people in your classes. You have this capacity to ignite a love of dance, a love of being together, a love of performance. And you create a classroom where people truly encourage each other in a dance environment where people can get so competitive. You create a classroom environment that is celebrating people where they are and helping people succeed with each other. It's not easy with different bodies and different ages ...
Ralph: Mm-hmm. I've been on both ends of that, of the studio. I've been the beginner. I've been the advanced. I've been the judge. And just seeing so many people, going around the world and seeing people and how people are and what they want and how they sparkle.
Elizabeth: Absolutely. We think of you as someone who continues to expand who gets to dance, where dance happens, what it is about and why does it matter. And I’m using the present tense on purpose. You are here. You are vibrant. You continue. So when you think of the impact you’re having through your lengthy career, what are you most proud of?
Ralph: I'm proud of inspiring people on-stage, or off-stage, or in classrooms. For example, when I would perform like those hard, hard ballets, like Donald McKayle's Rainbow 'Round My Shoulders, where you're on-stage and you never come off until the end, the other dancers would watch us from the wings and cry. Or Talley Beatty’s The Stack-Up when I would just go all the way in and show that you can go all the way in and not cross that line of not being able to come back.
Then in the studio and classrooms, teaching kids and adults to let go and find it. "What do you want? What do you want? Make a wish. What's your favorite song? What's your color? We're making this up as we go. It's fun. Let's look at the fun part. Tell me a joke." And once you break that ice ... That's why I started teaching jazz. It was supposed to be fun. I could do show tunes, I could do jazz music, I could do slow, and it worked. I was teaching at the Kirov and they're poised all the time, but I was like, "What do you have on your playlist? Play me a song." The music that they had was just so unexpected—James Brown and the Doobie Brothers, something like that. It just pulled them out.
I found this one girl in Kansas City at a master class. When she went across the floor and she did the combination, I was like, "Ladies and gentlemen, Amy." And that opened her up. She grew up right there. She just liked me for seeing her. And I see you. So I think I'm proud that I can see people and celebrate people and have people dance. Is that a good answer?
Elizabeth: It's a really good answer, Ralph. It's a really real answer because I've witnessed that. I have witnessed that in you. You see people and you allow people to see themselves.
So one last question here, Ralph. And it's a question we're asking lots of people as we get ready for our Dance On Festival: what keeps you dancing on? And it seems like you've had a number of times in your life where you made that choice. Why dance on?
Ralph: Well, one thing is I don't want to be left out. I want to be in it. Right now I am not dancing, because I'm healing from a hip replacement. I'm doing more painting and healing than dancing. Now I dance to heal, because if I don't dance it's the worst feeling. So I do port de bras every day. I hear good music differently now that I don't have to count all the time. And I know once my body opens up and the music hits, I'm going to want to get in the studio again. I know it's coming, because I claim retirement, but retirement from teaching is different from retirement from dancing. Once you're a dancer, you're always a dancer. That's it. They kept saying it, it's true. You have to dance, keep dancing.
Elizabeth: Absolutely. Can we hear a few more? Can we go back and forth finishing the sentence, “I dance on…?” I’ll start. I dance on because when I was a little girl I thought that God's plan was for me to dance, so I keep dancing on.
Ralph: I dance on because it's a responsibility for me.
Elizabeth: I dance on because it brings me joy even when I'm sad.
Ralph: I dance on to connect with nature.
Elizabeth: I dance on to connect with other people.
Ralph: I dance on to connect with music and the body.
Elizabeth: I dance on because it makes me aware of my whole self.
Ralph: Your whole self and the universe and the planets and ... I dance on to transform.
Elizabeth: I dance on to learn something new.
Ralph: I dance on to see how long I can do it, to keep going.
Elizabeth: Thank you, Ralph, for dancing on. Thanks for dancing on with us.