Can theater & dance bridge divides over race, culture? Fort Worth group shows the way

Watching choreographer Adam W. McKinney dance through some of Fort Worth’s landmarks pushes viewers to think about Fort Worth’s cultural district differently, said Jonathan Morris, co-owner of the Hotel Dryce.

The scenes are in a two and a half minute video called STRANDS that starts with an aerial view of the branches of trees at the Modern Art Museum, a shot McKinney said was intentional, aiming to show a bridge between what traditionally is part of the cultural district and what isn’t.

McKinney’s contemporary movements to cello music take the viewer through some of the cultural district’s most recognizable sites: Henry Moore’s sculpture facing the city skyline at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the steel “Vortex” sculpture outside the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The piece ends at an atypical site: the Atatiana Jefferson Memorial east of I-35 on Evans Avenue — a work honoring the woman who was killed in her home by Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean in October 2019.

“The way he’s interacting with the sculptures, I feel like you have to recognize them in a new way,” said Morris.

STRANDS is on permanent viewing at the recently opened boutique hotel, Hotel Dryce. It’s one of five works done by local artists of color, hoping to capture an image of Fort Worth that isn’t always pictured in the city’s hotel spaces, Morris said.

McKinney said he was intrigued by the idea of focusing on Black perspectives in a space where they generally haven’t been before. He collaborated with other local Black artists to put the piece together.

“I think what is particularly special and important about STRANDS is the idea of seeing what is not seen or looking at things from another angle, and placing my Black body in these locations that are in the cultural district might be enough of a contradiction,” McKinney said.

DNAWORKS focuses on healing

McKinney and now-husband Daniel Banks co-founded DNAWORKS in 2006, an organization committed to start conversation and healing through art. STRANDS is one of the organization’s latest works.

Both with backgrounds in the arts, McKinney and Banks had conversations since they met about a lack of representation in theater and dance of people who, like them, have multiple heritages or complex identities. They decided to make film, dance and theater productions to reflect these identities in all their complexities.

“As a professional dancer, I was often expected to and charged with performing ‘the African American experience,’ as if there is only one way to be African American,” McKinney said. “It is important for me to create artwork that signifies a space for a conversation about the histories of the diverse identities and experiences within Blackness on and off the stage.”

They have since taken works centered around race, class, heritage and identity to 37 states and 17 countries. The organization also hosts community workshops, teaching young people the healing power of arts, among other service-based initiatives.

Some works the company has produced include the play “The Real James Bond was Dominican,” which follows an actor’s journey of self-discovery when he finds out the James Bond character was inspired by a real-life Dominican playboy and spy, Porfirio Rubirosa. The multimedia performance “The Secret Sharer,” is a dance-theater adaptation of a 1909 queer novella that weaves audience narratives into the performance real-time. And “HaMapah/The Map” is a dance-theatre performance exploring how McKinney’s own African American, Native American and Jewish heritages intersect.

“Our mission as an organization, but really our goal as human beings, is to hold spaces for people to be moved and, if need be, reminded of our birthright as creative entities,” Banks said.

After performances, DNAWORKS invites audience members to have conversations about how the work affected them and to share their own experiences. Banks said this part of their work provides the opportunity for healing to take place.

“Lots of people are really well trained in drama therapy and dance therapy; that’s not what we do, but we do know that there is healing power in self expression ... and seeing one another clearly and understanding one another better,” Banks said.

Shared life experiences

Banks and McKinney said audience members have made long-term friendships over shared life experiences and discovered their family genealogies after having these conversations. In one instance during conversation after a “HaMapah/The Map” performance in Spain a woman called her mother to tell her that people in a theater full of people were talking about their identity and heritage, and her mother told her her father’s name for the first time.

“The woman waited for us outside the theater over an hour after the performance ended to share this and hug us,” Banks said.

This same philosophy can by applied to heal racial tensions and trauma, Banks and McKinney said.

“We understand that racialism and racism are a long and calculated project to separate people,” Banks said. “And so our work in movement, in story, in sound, in sight, visual art is all about peeling back the layers of this lie.”

DNAWORKS has been involved in several projects around Fort Worth, bringing these conversations and healing to the city where Banks and McKinney now live. The “Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse” is a local program intended to honor and remember the man whose death was the only recorded lynching of a Black man in Fort Worth.

DNAWORKS in partnership with others such as LGBTQ SAVES and Opal Lee’s Juneteenth Museum would like to turn a 1924 building built by the Ku Klux Klan on 1012 N. Main St. into a museum and arts center for community healing.

McKinney said revisiting old experiences and places that carry racial trauma is an opportunity for healing.

“In our programming .. we return to our bodies because, as people of color, our bodies are the justifications for trauma,” McKinney said. “It’s because of my skin tone and my hair texture that justifies racism, so we use our bodies to remember.”