3 minute read
What is Love?
Christopher L. Huggins is originally from Boston, Massachusetts. He began dancing because he needed to fulfill an athletic credit for gym at a private boarding high school. As he states “I would have had to take a sport and that wasn't happening, so I opted to take dance classes which would fulfill my athletic credit that was needed to graduate. And that is where I blossomed from there from the age of 15. ”
He then went on to have a long career as a dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. He has become an Internationally renowned choreographer. Mr. Huggins has created ballets for Philadanco!, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and Dance Theatre of Harlem just to name a few. Award winning choreographer has received the Alvin Ailey Award for Best Choreography, The Black Alliance Award, and Service to IABD in the Field of Dance Award from the International Association of Blacks in Dance. It was just announced that he is a recipient of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography. We sat down with him to talk about the ballet he set on Verb Ballets.
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When was Love is… originally created? The work was originally done for Lula Washington Dance Theatre of Los Angeles in honor of their 30th Anniversary season in 2010. Although the piece was originally created for Lula, this piece has had many manifestations with different companies since then. Sections have been deleted, added, or rearranged as I’m doing with Verb. The piece is ever evolving because love is.
Is there a story behind the work? The inspiration came from a movie soundtrack. I was in Italy taking class from one of my dear friends and he played the song during class. I was so struck by the music, I bought the soundtrack and after listening knew there was a ballet in the music. I just thought of "love is" and then each section has its own title though I don't like to put the titles in the program, necessarily. Love is going to be different for everyone, but I have specific words in mind when I’m looking at the choreographic sections. Each section explores the many different sides of love. Love can be complicated, love can be spontaneous, love can be silly, love can be hard. So, there is no real story but connecting to the many facets that love can be.
Tell us about your experience working with the dancers this week? I didn't know what to expect because I didn't know the company, but I was pleasantly surprised! The company has such lovely dancers. I didn’t expect dancers to be so good in a place like Cleveland. I think of New York City, San Francisco or Houston. Theses dancers are just lovely.
How did your dancing with Alvin Ailey influence you? I always say Mr. Ailey gave me my chance to fly. Everyone tells me I had my wings, but Mr. Ailey taught me how to use those wings. Mr. Ailey was extremely musical; he had an impeccable ear. I learned so much from his musicality and the earthiness of his movement quality. It influenced the way I like to move as well as my choreographic process.
Three words would you use to describe your choreographic style? Organic. I love movement that is close to the earth. In my background with Ailey, the plié was really emphasized and stressed in in our movement when we were dancing.
Technicality. I love technique. I trained for many years to obtain that technique so it's something that is very important to me. It brings clarity to the movement and cleanliness to the style of movement.
Humanistic. I feel like a lot of dance these days is more external and not internal. It doesn’t evoke a lot of emotion for me. I love the human quality of dance because we are people first. How would you describe Verb Ballets to someone? Ferocious. There are some really great dancers who go for it. The dancers’ technique is exquisite; I’d put them on the scale of any other company that exists right now. The caliber of dancer that is in that room matches any other the company that I’ve ever worked with.
