C A N N O P Y
Art is True North
Urban Jazz Dance Company
Urban Jazz Dance Company in "Deaf's IMPRISONED" - Photo by Robbie Sweeny Courtesy of UJDC
INTERVIEW — “We are the music that we see”
Words by Erin Baldwin
ISSUE 11 | SAN FRANCISCO | IN MOTION
Purple Fire Crow – also known as Antoine Hunter – is an African, Indigenous, Two-Spirit, disabled, and Deaf dancer who resists expectations to prove that dance is for everyone. Hunter built a dance career by feeling music through its vibrations and using movement as a form of self-expression, communication, and education. Today, the Bay Area native acts as Artistic Director to the Urban Jazz Dance Company, a performance collective that consists of both deaf and hearing dancers, and produces the Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival with the aim of giving Deaf artists a platform for presenting themselves to the world. Hunter also continues to work as a dance instructor, speaker, mentor, and Deaf advocate in the U.S. and internationally. He’s performed both to general audiences and school children, and lectured at Kennedy Center’s VSA, Harvard, Duke University, and the National Assembly of State Arts. Hunter joins Cannopy Magazine to discuss the origins of his company, using dance as a medium for his advocacy and education, and how the arts can continue to decenter ableism and fight against discrimination and prejudice.
How did your journey in the performing arts begin?
AH ── For me it started off with dance. It saved my life. It was a way to communicate with people—when I verbally speak, many people don’t understand me. Using dance to communicate with the world has bridge-making powers that I used to connect with everyone and to show their truth. For 15 years I’ve seen really positive reactions out there and have really brought people together.
Was there something about jazz, in particular, that drew you to it as a dance form?
AH ── The process itself goes beyond just jazz dance. It’s more the feeling of jazz. Everyone has a different pitch and, somehow, we find harmony. Different rhythms, different beats that are provided. We who move—we are the music that we see. It’s quite interesting when I say that I am a deaf dancer, because I notice that people don’t know how to listen. Who’s deaf? Is it me or them? Because they’re not listening to what we need or what we’re trying to say. We have to learn to listen. Just because you can hear doesn’t mean you know how to listen. So, I’m trying to put the word out there. Urban jazz is one of the truths on earth. It’s not just my story, but their story, that we bring together in different beats and forms. There are unexpected things happening. It’s alive, right there. I don’t really believe in the idea that everybody is supposed to be in rhythm with the music. Your heartbeat is your true rhythm. People say, “Oh, you’re dancing off beat.” But it’s the beat you feel. (Laughs) I look at people and if they have the feeling and are getting down—that’s what’s real.
Why was it important for you to bring both Hearing and Deaf artists together in Urban Jazz Dance Company?
AH ── I didn’t try, in the beginning, to have a dance company. I was just teaching dance classes and I was travelling around the world. My dance students who were loyal were coming to my classes—a mix of hearing and deaf, but mostly hearing. A few of them came up to me and were like, “Wow, I wish I could perform all over the world like you.” So, I said come and join me for this performance. It was at the Art + Soul Festival where they were supposed to say, “Antoine is dancing,” but somehow their announcer said, “This is the Urban Jazz Dance Company.” I found out later it was miswritten; they knew I was teaching urban jazz dance classes and so they thought I was the Urban Jazz Dance Company. And so that blessing fell in my lap.
People who want to perform, who want to share the truth, are welcome to perform—deaf, disabled, abled, hearing. But they have to be ready to work with each other in different languages from different backgrounds. Be ready to dance on a Deaf beat if you’re hearing. That can be challenging for some hearing people. But I’ve seen where hearing people come and work with us, and they say their lives have been truly transformed. They learn so much about the Deaf community. They learn to communicate better with other people that are hearing.
What practices do you think the dance and performing arts worlds should continue to engage in to decenter ableism?
AH ── I’ve always said we should be centering those who are being marginalised. I want people to invest in both: art and access. Can we have both? I find myself centering Deaf communities and BIPOC. We should be learning how to be allies and work together with communities: Deaf communities, BIPOC communities, disabled communities. When I work in theatres, I try to get the theatre to hire Deaf and disabled people to be in the theatre so we can be more engaged and inclusive. I hire interpreters and other organisations hire interpreters – ASL interpreters – not just for us, but for the audience who are watching.
How do you think the arts can play a role in both activism and education?
AH ── Both cannot live without each other. A surgeon is an artist. They educate themselves and repeat and repeat and repeat until perfection is achieved. I consider myself a scientist, an explorer, an interviewer. I interview people, in their voices, and put it on the stage. I go into caves that I’ve never been in. I go into prisons to feel what other people have felt when they were thrown in prison. They can’t live without each other. Both come together.