School of Dance students expand range through street dance with guest artist Teena Marie Custer

The Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts School of Dance’s annual performance “Winterdance” is right around the corner, and this year includes a piece of street dance for only the second time in the event’s history. 

Dance students spent the first week of Spring semester setting the work “Saint James Joy,” choreographed by Teena Marie Custer, a longtime street dance performer and educator. Custer currently tours with the dance company Ephrat Asherie Dance, is a member of Pittsburgh’s Get Down Gang street crew and Venus Fly, the first all-female all-star dance crew in the Midwest. She was also dance faculty for many years at Slippery Rock University and is a master class teacher around the country. 

Custer was able to visit OHIO to set this work thanks to a Visiting Artist Scholar’s Grant submitted by Assistant Professor of Instruction, Musical Theater and Dance Antony Alterio, who initially met Custer in 2008 and reconnected in Pittsburgh around 2014. Alterio feels street dance is an important tool for students to have in their dance repertoire and felt that Custer would be the perfect person to introduce OHIO students to the style for “Winterdance.” 

“Because they have to take eight semesters of modern and ballet, [with] jazz and hip-hop supplemental…any time we can bring in other forms that they get more experience in, that just makes you a more rounded dancer and gives you more edges in your arsenal,” says Alterio. “That’s the way the field's going. You've got to be a jack of all trades to be successful in the professional world.”

The show was cast by Alterio in September, and rehearsal started as soon as students returned in January since Custer is directly back out on tour the following week. Twelve hours was the total amount of time students had in rehearsal to set the work during the week, but Custer was impressed with how quickly OHIO dancers absorbed the movement. 

“We definitely have a varying level of familiarity with street dance in the cast and it didn't matter,” Custer said. “They all just attacked it and jumped in and were not afraid. I mean, maybe they were a little afraid…but they didn't show it, it was so fun!”  

The piece, entitled “St. James Joy,” is a resetting of two works Custer made over the global pandemic, one approaches the sadness over the loss of club space during lockdown and the joy of outdoor block parties near St. James Place in Brooklyn. Another centered on how she and her husband reacted differently to lockdown and that relationship to the natural world. 

A rehearsal performance took place in the Shirley Wimmer Dance Theater on Friday, Jan. 16, and included a Q&A with Custer about her career and advice for future dancers. An audience attended and responded to the work itself with excitement and with many cheers of encouragement. 

OHIO once had its own student-led street dance team and in discussing the local rise of B-girl culture over time, Custer remarks “…actual B-girls, there are just a couple, a handful, in Ohio. But if you're talking hip hop dancers, yes, there are a lot of women. And I think mostly it's because it just got more accepted as it got more commercialized. So now, instead of having to go to a dark, gritty session in someone's basement, you just go to a class. Back when I was coming up 25 years ago, there were no women that wanted to battle, because obviously it's aggressive, competitive and the culture itself can be really raw.” 

But Custer also points to the evolution of the scene as having become more accessible. 

“I think one thing that really contributed to more people, especially women, participating in hip hop or street dance culture, is the emergence of all styles. So, when I first was coming up, you either had to pick popping, or breaking, or locking...maybe house. Those were kind of the only battles you would see. And then in the last 25 years, this style emerged called ‘all styles.’ It's a blend…you still specialize in something, but it makes people not have to go super deep into any one thing. And [in terms of] getting jobs…I think that's a big reason why there are more women now, because it's more commercially accessibile.”

Custer’s history, perspective and expertise in street styles had OHIO Dance students glowing about their time with her to the audience during the Q&A, with comments about how this experience hugely impacted their confidence, energy and willingness to take chances in the future, along with mentions from the audience that this was evident in quality of their dancing from just a single week of street dance training and choreography. 

To see “St. James Joy” in motion, be sure to attend “Winterdance,” which will take place Friday, Feb. 13, and Saturday, Feb. 14, at 7p.m. in the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. It will include six works, four choreographed by Dance faculty and two by guest artists Teena Marie Custer and Urban Bush Women. Students are free with an OHIO ID.