About the Artist/Ensemble

Riddick Dance (formally known as Beauty for Ashes Dance & Theater, Inc.) was founded in 2009 by artistic director, David F. Riddick.  Riddick Dance is a contemporary dance company known for its broad dance repertory, expressive movement, athleticism, and fusion of dance styles.  In performance, Riddick Dance uses diverse platforms of presentation including, but not limited to, visual media, spoken word, live music, and visual art.  Educational workshops challenge participants to dance their “truth” while expanding their movement vocabularies and maintaining body awareness.   Riddick Dance aims to enrich the range of cultural offerings by focusing on a wide range of performing arts, but especially expressive dance.  Productions including ONE, Phoenix, and The King Project have distinguished the company as a novel contemporary dance company in the Hampton Roads region. 

Concert/Performance Description

Lavender Throne Heel on the Backside
Lavender Throne Heel on the Backside Is a contemporary dance collaboration with spoken word that will display the unbelievable writings of Audre Lorde and others to discuss the undying beauty of a man’s freedom to love? The journey will allow you to see how a man is revered and face daily scrutiny wrapped up in doctrines of rejections and the art of being misunderstood. Through these dance writings, we will see the devotion and purity that lie within every man’s heart to be accepted or left to a wither soul. This New Testament of love will not become conversation full of attacks and labored in a lifetime of suffering. Can we display devotion and purity which will raise the state of healing with a resolution of vibration to the highest level of empathy and allows one to walk in their own courage and self-preservation?

The Brown Bag Special
The Brown Bag Special is an evening of two world premiere works New York City-based choreographer Marshall Swiney.” A Lil Mo Moses” looks at the musical genius of James Brown during the 1980’s. When James Brown threw down the gauntlet and challenge the young guns of disco, rap, hip-hop, and jazz. Let’s throw down and revisit the social dance scenes for the 70’s until 2018 and let’s just throw it down on the stage. Also, we give a world premiere to “Miz Virginia is ah Traveling ….” deals sudden death of a dear friend that did not get chance to say bye too. I will say bye to her in my tribute to dance.

Traveling Home
“The broken foot path of the soul’’ This is an evening of the dance theater that explores the human conditions through the spoken words of David F. Riddick. It deals with the beaten foot path and external complexities that parallel to the confrontation from within the soul to a place of peace. It expresses the transparencies of emotions one faces in life but rises to learn the truth. This movement explores and indulges in a fuse of African, Jazz, Contemporary Dance and Ballet.

Technical Requirements

Technical needs are negotiable for all services.  Danceable floor services. Sound system with CD and/or laptop capabilities. Stage or classroom with danceable floors. Sound system with CD playback capability and handheld microphone, general stage illumination, private room for costumes and makeup with access to bathrooms.

Educational Programs

Modern Lab (Master Class)
This is an introductory dance class intended to share with students the basics of contemporary dance forms, using elements from The King Project in a structured dance class. The voice of MLK is used as accompaniment, along with other music sources and soundscapes.

Discovering MLK Speech, I Have a Dream
The class will look at the sermon structure of the I Have a Dream speech, including its cadences. Students are asked to write their own sermons and create movements to them using skills from the Modern Lab.

Creating the 100’s Positions Movement Vocabulary
Depending on how advanced students in the class are, the students may create up to 100 positions or shapes. Each shape will be photographed and posted and numbered on a wall. Students make phrases based on numbers drawn from a hat. The students learn to develop a movement vocabulary before taking the voice of I Have a Dream and map their own movement vocabulary to the speech.

Exploring five fashion or costumes designers of the 1950’s-1960’s
Students research fashion designers in the areas of film, stage, and dance, and explore their impact on popular culture of the day. Based on these data and analysis, students are asked to sketch ideas on paper and then explain how they developed their own sketches

Researching Five Organizers behind the March on Washington
The students identify and research five community organizers who worked behind the scenes. The assignment is to develop character sketches through text and movement. All residency programs can be purchased from two to five days or as one-five-week group

Limericks of Our Soles  In collaboration, choreographers David Riddick and Marshall Swiney created a mixed-bag dance theater assortment to include love stories, poems, and speeches.

ONE is a mixed media piece dealing with love, loss, forgiveness, and conflict resolution told through the enlightening, meditative music of Alice Coltrane.

The King Project: I Have A Dream The King Project: I Have A Dream is prayers of humanity labored in the continuum of race.  The two collaborators explored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech, and “Letters from Birmingham Jail” through an improvisational structured dance theater laced in visual projections.

Limericks blends compassion, empathy and respect for humanity. Limericks is a 90-minute production.

For more information, visit http://www.beauty4asheshamptonva.com/

Audience

• All Ages