DANCING A LEGACY:
Movement in the wake of the Greensboro Massacre
By Sophie Bress
“You all said you were ready to rise, am I right?” Diana Toledo shouts as she breaks free from the line of dancers taking their curtain call.
Cheers erupt from the packed house of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University’s Harrison Auditorium in Greensboro, North Carolina. Toledo crouches down and scans the crowd, as if to look each member of the audience in the eye. “You all said you were ready to rise, am I right?”
The applause swells.
“So get your joyous selves up on the stage, let’s get down,” she says, raising both arms in the air.
People pack the aisles, flooding the stairs on either side of the proscenium, eagerly joining the audience members who had been seated on stage to watch CONTRA-TIEMPO’s performance of its acclaimed joyUS justUS.
Forming dance circles, they merge with Toledo and the other CONTRA-TIEMPO artists. One dancer launches into a spree of break-dance moves. A group of children’s eyes widen as they watch. An elderly couple joins hands and bursts into a lively swing dance. Everyone lets loose.
CONTRA-TIEMPO’s Founding Artistic Director Ana Maria Alvarez receives them all, flinging her arms wide. Among the throngs that fill the stage are her husband, Jonathan Lowe, and their two sons, Luca and Sidney. Alvarez’s parents, Joe and Sally, too, are there. It’s impossible to tell who is a CONTRA-TIEMPO dancer and who isn’t, who is family and who is not.
It seems like everyone is out of their seats, dancing. Everyone except for the armed guards stationed outside each of the theater doors.
Forty years ago, five people were killed in Greensboro, victims of a racially and politically motivated shooting that is commonly referred to as the 1979 Greensboro Massacre. Mention of the massacre within the Greensboro community unearths forces of tension that are not buried far beneath the surface. And for people like Alvarez, her family, and the CONTRA-TIEMPO company members — who choose to remember the Massacre and honor those who were lost — it could even mean danger. Many citizens would prefer to erase November 3rd from town history altogether. Because of this, having firearms present at the event was not a deliberate choice. It was a necessity, said Alvarez, whose joyUS justUS pays homage to the Greensboro victims during the 40th anniversary commemoration of the Massacre.
“There is a sense of real denial of our history that I find to be very disheartening,” Alvarez said. “But that also fires me up and ignites a flame inside of me.”
The day before the performance, in the industrially lit dressing room below the stage, Alvarez gathered the eight company dancers together. Her voice steeped in emotion, she told them the story of Cesar Cauce, Michael Nathan, William Sampson, Sandra Smith, and James Waller, the five activists who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in the Greensboro Massacre.
The Greensboro Five were members of the Communist Worker’s Party, as were Alvarez’s parents. On November 3rd, 1979, the group had organized a march protesting the activities of the Klan. The CWP was committed to labor rights for workers in the nearby mills. The Klan opposed this activity, not only because the CWP favored communist ideals, but because their actions integrated workers of all races. The march — officially titled the “Death to the Klan March” — took place in a predominantly African-American neighborhood called Morningside Homes. At approximately 11:20 am, the protestors were confronted by gun-wielding members of the Klan. The Klansmen killed five CWP members, injured 10, and left intense emotional wounds on numerous others.
This is not the type of story that most of us recall from our childhood. But for Alvarez, it’s one that she’ll never forget. Though her parents were not present during the November 3rd attacks, they were active in the CWP and the victims were their friends.
“Every single one of the [Greensboro] Five were like aunts and uncles to me,” Alvarez said. “I have pictures with every single one of them holding me as a baby.”
Alvarez’s father was one of the main labor organizers for the CWP, and had he been present that day, her world might have changed in an instant.
“It wasn’t just random shots into a crowd. It was very much targeted at the organizers and my father was an organizer,” she said. “I was two years old when it happened, but growing up there’s always been this idea that it could have been him. It could have been my father.”
There were three trials following the massacre. Alvarez was seven years old by the end of the second criminal trial, when nine Klansmen were acquitted by an all-white jury in federal court. Though the following civil trial resulted in a payment of restitution to two Greensboro Massacre survivors, the Klan was not responsible for the payment. The money came from the City of Greensboro. To this day, not a single Klansmen has ever served time or paid in any way for the tragedy that took place on November 3rd, 1979.
“We were going through the court trials for what felt like my childhood,” Alvarez said. “The Greensboro Massacre being a fact of my life and my upbringing shaped the way that I view the world.”
Ana Maria Alvarez was born in Greensboro, North Carolina to a Cuban father and an American mother. She grew up in a socially conscious household and was taught from a young age that she had both a connection to the politics of the world and the power to change them. Her parents didn’t shield their children from the harsh realities of what happened on November 3rd, 1979. Rather, they used the tragedy as a way to teach young Alvarez, and her brother Cesar — named after Cesar Cauce — about justice, community, and standing up for what’s right.
“I knew as a little girl that whatever I was going to do with my life, I was going to fight for justice and I was going to create a world of more love, more compassion, more connection, and more tolerance,” she said.
Though her family moved away from Greensboro after the 1979 Massacre, they returned when Alvarez was in high school. During these years, she was a member of the E. Gwynn dancers at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. It was with this dance company that she first began to learn and perform traditional West African, Afro-Haitian, and Afro-Cuban dances. She was also introduced to the work of Katherine Dunham, a dance and social justice pioneer, who she later trained with at the Dunham Institute in New York City.
She went on to earn her BA in dance and politics at Oberlin College and her MFA in choreography at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her MFA thesis project, which focused on using salsa dance as a form of resistance against unjust immigration laws, was the force behind the birth of CONTRA-TIEMPO. She founded the company in 2005.
“When I was deciding to be an artist, I always knew that I was going to be an artist that was making a difference,” Alvarez said. “Art was my selected and chosen — and by chosen I mean it chose me — tool to be able to really make a difference. That’s definitely part of why I decided to even have a company and why my company does the kind of work it does.”
Fast-forward 15 years and CONTRA-TIEMPO is celebrating its anniversary after a Los Angeles performance of joyUS justUS. Dressed in brightly patterned wide leg trousers that resemble the skirt of a ball gown, Alvarez exudes warmth and effortlessly commands the room. Company members and audience members mingle, sipping champagne and celebrating the company’s success. Alvarez is surrounded by friends and family, as it seems she always is.
“[You can] get caught up in her vortex because she really is a powerful person,” her mother, Sally Alvarez said. “She has a powerful presence and a drive to make things happen that sweeps people up.”
It was this drive that resulted in CONTRA-TIEMPO, a dynamic company that fuses the activism Alvarez grew up with and the artistic sensibility she has cultivated her entire life. Through her return to Greensboro with the company she’s built, Alvarez has not only brought her own work full circle, she has paid testament to the work and legacy of the Greensboro Five.
Allusions and direct ties to the Greensboro Massacre infuse joyUS justUS from start to finish. At the top of the second act, the full company of dancers bursts onto the stage, like beams of light in their vibrantly patterned, jewel-toned costumes. They stop as abruptly as they started, like they’ve run into a time warp and suddenly are moving in slow motion. A clear, steady voice pierces the still air of the auditorium: “Justice.” Other voices join in, repeating the word and defining it. A steady drumbeat accompanies this voice track, fused — through pattern and rhythm — with the spoken word and the slow, determined strides of the dancers. Like a wave has crashed over their heads, they begin to fall to the floor, one at a time, and roll over their shoulders, letting the words wash over them like water. And then the audio track asks the question that still rings in the heads of Greensboro Massacre survivors today: “But what about justice?”
In another section of the piece, Toledo and Bianca Medina stand strong, their legs rooted to the stage like tree trunks. Their upper bodies undulate, growing up from the solid base their legs provide. Once upright, their arms raise above their heads and cross to form an “X.” Fists clenched, their entire bodies almost vibrate with power. Soon, more dancers join them on the stage, walking and running, jumping and falling, enveloping the space in moving bodies. This section of the performance is accompanied by sounds of a protest, but as the movement of the dancers intensifies, becoming frantic, it suggests that it’s a protest that’s turned to chaos and to tragedy.
“The most powerful way to resist anything is by putting your body on the line. That’s what the Greensboro Five did,” Alvarez said. “What does it mean to have your body be a vessel for connection and self-expression and power and joy and reframing narrative? I think that dance has that capacity.”
Alvarez’s dances certainly do. joyUS justUS, her most recent work, examines systems of oppression and hardship, specifically those faced by communities of color. Her work turns the oppressive narrative on its head, using joy as a form of resistance to rise up against the powers that be.
While joyUS justUS was in development, CONTRA-TIEMPO worked with underserved communities in South Los Angeles to generate movement and choreographic material. Much of the fodder for this material came from shared story circles and conversations. And though joyUS justUS tells the story of South LA, and the stories of the company dancers, it is also Alvarez’s story. The backdrop for the work— a series of homemade, hanging tapestries and quilts — is made from clothing, curtains, and other material from her childhood. There is a section of the piece in which the adoption story of her son, Luca, is depicted. And, of course, Alvarez’s activist roots become the lifeblood that runs through the veins of joyUS justUS.
Bringing the work to Greensboro is in many ways bringing it back to where it began. And for Alvarez, it felt like a merging of worlds.
“In Greensboro, to look around and see all of these people from my childhood and all of these people that are really family, connected with CONTRA-TIEMPO, it just really felt like the energy was off the chain,” she said. “I just felt like there were so many connections that got made that night.”
The area of Greensboro that was once Morningside Homes is now empty. The paved streets still remain, but there are no houses, no children playing, no people walking their dogs. Even if someone didn’t know what happened here, there is a palpable feeling of heaviness in the air. Aside from the power lines that split through the sky, the only thing standing is a historical marker which reads: “Greensboro Massacre: Ku Klux Klan members and American Nazis, on Nov. 3, 1979, shot and killed five Communist Workers Party members one-tenth mile north.”
“The neighborhood doesn’t exist anymore; they tore it down,” Sally Alvarez said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was very deliberate.”
To this day, it is incredibly difficult to bring up the events of November 3rd in Greensboro. Some disagree with the word “massacre,” choosing instead to call it a “shootout.” Many do not acknowledge the events of November 3rd at all, hoping to forget about it and move on. The historical marker was put in place only recently, in 2015. It not only acknowledges what happened that day, but in many ways is a small symbol of victory for the survivors. After all these years, there is finally some form of recognition of what happened on this land, of their friends, and of the lives that were lost.
But despite the acknowledgement that came with the construction of the historical marker, Alvarez ran into numerous roadblocks as she was trying to secure funding for CONTRA-TIEMPO’s performance in Greensboro. Most of the issues stemmed from the local refusal to discuss and engage with the Greensboro Massacre.
“I was asked over and over again: ‘Well, why don’t you bring the show and just don’t tell anyone you’re connected to November 3rd and we could potentially help sponsor that,’” Alvarez recounted. “I had to tell people multiple times that I was not going to dis-associate with the Greensboro Massacre.”
Because of this local trepidation toward addressing the events of November 3rd, CONTRA-TIEMPO did not receive any outside funding from Greensboro entities aside from the Beloved Community Center, a faith and social justice-based organization founded by Nelson Johnson, a survivor of the massacre. But despite these fiscal difficulties, Alvarez knew this performance was something she had to do. She made contact with local universities — including North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University — to organize dance workshops and pop-up performances.
Just like the community of survivors rallied together after November 3rd, they rallied behind Alvarez to bring the performance to fruition. Maintaining togetherness and community was key for healing in the years after the massacre, and it’s clear that in this Alvarez found inspiration. joyUS justUS is a testament to that.
“One of the reasons we were able to survive as individuals, as a family, and as a community was that people loved each other.” Sally Alvarez said. “Both [Ana Maria and her brother, Cesar] grew up as part of a community that grew out of November 3rd. It’s an intact community that has been a wellspring of creativity and joy, particularly for Ana Maria.”
Alvarez’s family tree spans far beyond her nuclear family. It includes everyone who was affected by November 3rd, 1979: the survivors, their children, and the Greensboro Five themselves. Growing up rooted in this way, it’s no wonder that the community she created within CONTRA-TIEMPO is just as strong.
The full company rehearses in Greensboro before the performance on Nov. 2, 2019.
The six dancers and two apprentices that make up CONTRA-TIEMPO support each other onstage and off. Onstage, they back one another through their bodies and voices, by clapping, whooping, and hollering. Offstage, they are a home base for each other. When Alvarez told the dancers the story of November 3rd, she had tears in her eyes, and so did several company members. It was clear that they were empathizing with her and also preparing to stand by one another during the commemoration. For some company members, the Greensboro performance was the first time they had realized the depth of Alvarez’s connection with the 1979 massacre.
“I developed a deeper understanding of her and why she does the work that she does,” said Jasmine Stanley, who has danced with the company since 2018. “She’s so knowledgeable because she grew up in this, she’s experienced it.”
Learning about Alvarez’s history caused Stanley to understand and approach joyUS justUS in a new way. During previous performances of the work, she found connection to the choreography through her own story. In Greensboro, however, she connected to Alvarez’s story, and to the stories of each survivor in the audience.
“I felt like I was almost sharing the story of the community. It felt less like ‘this is my story and I want share’ and more like ‘I see you, and we’re connected,’” she said.
For CONTRA-TIEMPO dancer Jannet Galdamez, performing joyUS justUS in Greensboro allowed her to connect more deeply with the piece. And through her dancing in the work, she felt united with the community of Greensboro Massacre survivors.
“Everywhere we go, joyUS justUS is a piece that’s absolutely influenced by the people we share it with,” she said. “There was just a different drive, a different push [in Greensboro]. It was absolutely humbling to be able to share with this community. And even though it was my first time in Greensboro, there was a very home-like feeling because Ana Maria had established her family and community there already. As a dancer, and feeling so connected to her, it felt very much like home.”
Galdamez and each of the CONTRA-TIEMPO dancers know Alvarez deeply, as not only their choreographer and director, but as their friend. During their tenure in Greensboro, the company members dove into Alvarez’s history, learning about the massacre so they could connect more deeply with the community at the commemoration, and also with Alvarez.
“This is part of her childhood that has really inspired the work that she does now,” Galdamez said. “[Being in Greensboro] filled us with this reminder of why we’re here and coming full circle.”
It’s November 2nd, 2019 and the stage of the Harrison Auditorium is completely dark, save for a sea of small, twinkling lights. Some are projections, bringing what looks like a swirling galaxy of stars to the dance floor. Some come from an altar — carefully adorned with candles, sage and palo santo — that glows from the back of the stage. CONTRA-TIEMPO sets altars like this one at each performance of joyUS justUS. The altar is a way to pay homage to ancestors and establish the performance space as sacred. In Greensboro, it means all this and more.
“It feels like we’re calling on our ancestors and calling on those who have come before us,” Alvarez said. “I hear them and I see them and I feel them in that space. They’re there with us. Their legacy, their memories, their energy, their spirit.”
The tune of “You are my Sunshine,” fills the air, a sweet humming, like a mother soothing her child. Medina steps into the swirling stars. Her movements begin, slow and measured, and then start to pick up speed and rhythm. She skates through her spotlight as if on ice; she flicks her wrists and cocks her chin with the confidence and bravado of a flamenco dancer. A second spotlight emerges, revealing that the humming is coming from Toledo. The two join in a duet of dance and song. Toledo’s vocals grow louder, each note vibrating with emotion. Just as quickly as the duet grew in passion, it returns once again to soft tenderness. Medina lowers herself to the floor, rubbing her palms together deliberately and gently, as if this simple motion is the key to healing years of hurt. As she rises to her feet, looking up at the lights that freckle her face, Alvarez’s clear, crisp voice cuts through Toledo’s hummed tune. “Cesar Cauce,” she says. In turn, four other members of the audience —those who had been seating on the stage during the show — stand and state the names of the Greensboro Five.
“Bill Sampson”
“Sandi Smith”
“Dr. James M. Waller”
“Mike Nathan”
Those who speak the names of the Five are the second generation of November 3rd survivors. Like Ana Maria, they have grown up in the shadow of the Greensboro Massacre. At the 40th anniversary commemoration, with this performance of joyUS justUS, it is their time to speak, to add to the legacy of the five activists who have helped to define their lives.
“Thinking about the legacy of the Greensboro Five and if they’re looking down on us, I think they would want us to be focusing on building movements of joy, love, connection, and power,” Alvarez said. In many ways, their legacy is also hers.
