Gordon Parks x Nimbus Dance - Art x Activism - The Gordon Parks Foundation

This piece was inspired by the groundbreaking photography of Gordon Parks. Encompassed by the soulful stirrings of Sam Cooke, The New Tide takes an interdisciplinary approach to embodying the thematic ideas of love, community and advocacy personified in Parks’s extensive body of work.
–Dawn Marie Bazemore, choreographer

The New Tide
Nimbus Dance

To view the full performance click here.
To view an excerpt of the perfomance click here.

Choreography: Dawn Marie Bazemore
Assistant to the choreographer: Donovan Louis Bazemore
Music: Sam Cooke
Photography: Gordon Parks (courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation)
Lighting Design: Rebecca Nussbaum
Costumes: Erica Johnston
Props: Samuel Pott
Dancers: Xavier Alexander, Tyler Choquette, Leighann Curd, Catherine Escueta, Mika Greene, Shayla Hutton, Caleb Mansor, Aanyse Pettiford-Chandler, and Victoria Santaguida

In their third collaboration, Nimbus Dance and choreographer Dawn Marie Bazemore, premiered The New Tide in Spring 2023 at the Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City, NJ. After working with Nimbus on the staging of Modern Dance Pioneer Pearl Primus’ iconic 1942 solo Strange Fruit, and following her creation on Nimbus of The After-Party, a thrilling dance composition set to vocal recordings by Nina Simone and Nancy Wilson, Dawn Marie Bazemore proposed a work based on the photography of Gordon Parks. The project concept was embraced by The Gordon Parks Foundation, and, receiving support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Ms. Bazemore began work on the choreography in Fall 2022. Ms. Bazemore’s concept was to embody and bring to life the figures represented in Parks’s photography, telling both historic and imagined stories, and building a bridge between the present moment of performance and the historic figures and episodes pictured by Gordon Parks. Music and vocal recordings of Sam Cooke, form the soundscape of this work that was called an “absolute revelation” by the Jersey City Times. The New Tide remains in Nimbus’ repertory and was performed on tour. It returned to the Nimbus Arts Center in March 2023.

The creation of The New Tide was made possible through the support of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Dawn Marie Bazemore (Choreographer) is a Philadelphia based dance artist and educator. She is currently an Associate Professor in the department of Theatre and Dance at Rowan University and the Artistic Director of her own dance collective DMB|#dbdanceproject. Bazemore is a former member of Philadanco and her performance of Strange Fruit, choreographed by the late Dr. Pearl Primus, is currently on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In addition to collaborating with her own collective, Bazemore has been commissioned to choreograph for Philadanco and Nimbus Dance Works. In 2018, she was selected to be a Jacob’s Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow and was the 2019 Dance Visions Artist in Residence at the Performance Garage. Bazemore is also a published author and her essay, Dance and Activism: The Practice and Impact of Sociopolitical Concert Dance, can be found in the online journal The Dancer-Citizen.

Dawn Marie Bazemore

About Nimbus Dance:

Nimbus bridges the gap between world-class performance and community engagement by creating work that speaks to and elevates diverse audiences and reflects today’s most pressing societal issues. The company champions the arts as an active and essential part of healthy communities and holds up the art-making process as a means to build intentional dialogue, while directing special focus to expanding arts access for economically, racially and geographically underserved communities.

Nimbus was founded in 2005 as a loose consortium of dancers guided by Founder/Artistic Director, Samuel Pott, a former soloist with Martha Graham Dance Company. Nimbus has grown to become NJ’s largest contemporary dance organization, premiering multiple works each year, and operating the Nimbus Arts Center which serves our nation’s most diverse city: Jersey City, NJ. Nimbus serves 16,000 people annually, including over 4000 youth with dance classes at Nimbus’ home location and at off-site programs, addressing the need for quality cultural programming in JC, historically underserved by both arts organizations/providers and arts funders. Nimbus is deeply connected to the Jersey City community through partnership with area non-profits and service to local populations.

The company distinguishes itself through cross-genre collaborations with theater, visual and music artists. Through in-depth collaboration, Nimbus has developed a highly attuned, physical, and visually striking aesthetic and a specific community-centric pedagogy that informs the company’s approach to arts-based engagement. The company’s trademark immersive community projects are characterized by a highly participatory process, drawing community members into repertory through movement-based workshops exploring a range of socio-political and personal subject matter. Nimbus has completed over 35 such projects, presented alongside world-class dance repertory in urban and rural settings.