Black Dancers Stress Unity, but Ominous Note Is Sounded : Dance: A veteran choreographer warns delegates at a Denver conference that they are ‘facing extinction.’

DENVER —  Like a bubbly camp counselor, Cleo Parker Robinson welcomed a roomful of delegates to the third annual International Conference of Black Dance Companies last weekend. As dance pioneer Katherine Dunham sat regally nearby, Robinson (host of the event) invited the dancers, choreographers, administrators and journalists to stand and introduce themselves.

They had come from all corners of the country--and from as far away as Peru and Bermuda--to meet and discuss the plentiful problems of being a black dancer in the ‘90s. Everyone knew that sources for funding were drying up, that arts of all colors were struggling for audiences.

Still, there was a joyful sense of togetherness in the room, as each introduction was made. Then, Eleo Pomare stood.

His head shaven, sporting a single earring, the veteran choreographer looked like a relic from the ‘60s--which he is. “Black dancers,” he said slowly, emphatically, “must realize that we are all facing extinction.”

Pomare punctuated each word by pounding the table with a pen. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room. As Robinson noted later on: “Eleo came (to Denver) almost feeling that there was no use in our coming together.”

Later that evening, the conference presented a rave-up “Salute to the Masters,” honoring in words, slides and performance the contributions of Dunham and three other pivotal figures in dance: Arthur Mitchell (who also attended), Pearl Primus (who didn’t), and the late Alvin Ailey.

During intermission, Pomare puffed on a cigarette near a doorway and quietly expanded on his ominous warning: “It’s a simple case of racism. The arts world will allow a thousand Merce Cunninghams and a thousand Twyla Tharps--but there’s only room for one Alvin Ailey. That’s all they will allow.”

Agreeing that the 200 dance makers assembled in Denver were probably in no mood for such strong political talk, Pomare shrugged and said, “I am brutally truthful.”

If the weekend of classes, workshops, performances, panel discussions and partying proved one thing, it is that political viewpoints are as plentiful as dance styles.

On one end of the spectrum was the contagious energy of Robinson and the North Carolina-based, African-influenced Chuck Davis. Each spoke rapturously of the joy in discovering one another.

On the other philosophical end stood Pomare and, to an extent, Dunham, who noted that this was “a wretched, miserable period in the history of mankind.”

Robinson also acknowledged Pomare’s warning, but added that “this wasn’t a political time” for those at the conference.

“We’re at the point where we need to be rooted,” she said. “We really must come together, now that the arts have become so decentralized.” She said that Joan Myers Brown of Philadanco in Philadelphia created this conference three years ago to deal with the problems of isolation.

“We needed to empower ourselves. . . . Gradually, we will develop a mechanism, so that at the next conference (in Dayton, Ohio) and the one after that (hosted by Lula Washington in Los Angeles) we can work from a stronger political basis.”

On this occasion, at least, the tone was strictly celebratory.

At the opening-night “Salute to the Masters,” Ailey dancer April Berry performed an excerpt from Dunham’s “L’Ag’Ya.” Renee Robinson, another Ailey product, honored the late choreographer by dancing his solo “Cry.” To wrap up the evening, a cast of dozens led by the irrepressible Davis danced a West African “Tribute to the Elders,” accompanied by an army of drummers.

Many of the “elders”--including Mitchell, Primus’ son Onwin, veteran dancers Joe Nash and Walter Nix and Ailey school director Denise Jefferson--got into the act, to the delight of the crowd.

A series of classes and discussions took up most of the second day, culminating in another celebratory performance. That night, a showcase concert was held at the new facility that serves as home base for Robinson’s company: an old African Methodist church standing proudly in near darkness across the street from a brightly lit shopping mall.

The significant role of youth was acknowledged by Dunham, as she countered Pomare’s warning at the opening session. Young blacks, she cautioned, “must understand that there is always someone working against Up harder than you are working against Down. You know, I spent a good deal of my miserable childhood looking out the window at a star.”

Referring to the four “masters,” Robinson said, “None of them survived by dwelling on the negative. What we all need is time”--a point seconded earlier in the conference by Dunham, who last summer announced that she had turned 80.

“If you can get over the first 60 or 70 years,” she told the delegates, “you can make it.”