With the support of the National Endowment of Arts and access to School of American Ballet through a partnership with SAB and New York City Ballet Artistic Director Jonathan Stafford; Two Black Voices is a collaborative intellectual vehicle to present, teach, and study the under treasured Black Dance Vocabularies of Fagan Technique and McLeod Technique. This research, cross analysis, and data driven study takes place through in-studio workshop sessions launched at School of American Ballet, scholarly conversation, and performance of choreography by William J Ferguson II and Sean McLeod.
“It’s not often that dancers, choreographers, or producers get to step into clear analytic space, where everything is done through a scientific process. To truly look at these two Black-created techniques, decide if they truly are codified techniques, decide through trial, comparison, and analysis – how they interact with each other, what they can glean from each other, what we as dancers can glean from each technique.” – Devon McLeod
This approach comes together to discusses the following questions; are there indeed Black dance techniques, what makes these two vocabularies in particular dance techniques, and what discernible differences and fundamental similarities exist between the two syllabi and other European based techniques such as Classical Ballet.
“After 34 years of dance and artistic work presenting Garth Fagan Dance, I happily claim my voice as a significant contributor and to where Fagan Technique can go from here.” – William J Ferguson II
