Art As Necessity

Donald Byrd uses modern dance as a platform for social action. His productions—with focuses that include post-9/11 America, police shootings of unarmed black men and violence against LGBTQ+ people—invite audiences to connect with their emotions related to societal issues and engage in conversations about them.

“Why would I choose to do that as opposed to [creating] just a pretty, nice dance?” Byrd asked attendees of an intimate talk in October in the Zoellner Arts Center Lower Gallery.” Because if you make the pretty, nice dance, everybody comes to the pretty, nice dance. They applaud and ... smile and they go home. They forget about it. That’s why I choose to do those things.”

Byrd, artistic director of Seattle’s Spectrum Dance Theater, discussed “Using the Arts for Social Impact” at the public talk the evening before he and Spectrum presented “A Rap on Race” in Baker Hall. The performance—co-created by Byrd and playwright Anna Deavere Smith—is based on the 1970 public conversation on race between social critic James Baldwin and anthropologist Margaret Mead.

The conversation remains relevant, Byrd said. “And it raises a question that comes up all the time among African-American people: Have things changed?”

Discussing his recent production, “Shot,” which addresses the shooting of unarmed black men by police, he said, “Are we able to look at something onstage that we recognize ourselves in what we’re seeing? That I can’t shoot you if I think you’re me. … and I think that’s really important that we have to learn to do that ...

I look at you as another human being and I recognize myself in your existence and so I interact with you like you’re me.”

Byrd said his main motivation is community impact. “I don’t think of art as something that is trivial and that we can do without. I think of it as a necessity. It’s like an essential nutrient that we need for our spirit and our souls, and I want to be able to contribute that to people or to open that up as a possibility for them to receive that. And that drives everything that I do.” —Kelly Hochbein