EDGAR L. PAGE: FEEL THE MOVEMENT
Presenting Denver would like to shine the spotlight on Edgar L. Page and Edgar L. Page: Feel the Movement!
Choreographer Name: Edgar L. Page
Company Name: Edgar L. Page: Feel the Movement
Hometown: Detroit, MI
Current city you live in: Denver, CO
Education: I earned my BA in Dance from Western Michigan University as a Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Diversity Scholar and a Wade H. McCree Jr. Incentive Scholar.
Website: www.edgarlpage.com
Presenting Denver: Tell us something about your experience choreographing for the Festival. What drove you to choreograph this piece?
Edgar L. Page: Edgar L. Page continues his interrogation of the continual morphing of intimacy in the digital age with this new work, “Things We Lost in the Fire.” While struggling with immense feelings of self-doubt, displacement and rejection, a friend offered me a very colorful and proverb-like colloquialism: “Sometimes you have to burn the village down and dance on the flames.” This set my mind on a path examining how fire is used in metaphor and its function in life. The work, a gripping narrative about love, loss, and evolution, seeks throughout to answer the question: how can one emerge from the flames that engulf us daily and not be an agent of change?
PD: If you are originally from another state, what brought you to Colorado?
ELP: I moved to Colorado just over 10 years ago to dance with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. I was fortunate enough to tour domestically and internationally as a principal dancer in the company for eight seasons.
PD: What do you hope your audience takes away from this piece?
ELP: It is always my hope to create a shared emotional experience between the “viewers” and the “doers” of dance in real time. I want to inspire honest dialogue about dance and how it relates to living and loving in this era fueled by technological advances, as we continue to see the products of different generations break down socially and literally crash into one another.
PD: What is the best piece of dance career advice you’ve ever been given, and by whom?
ELP: My best friend Devin Baker once told me: You LIVE the way you dance. He offered this as a challenge to learn more about myself in order to authentically share my narrative with the world. At first I rejected this notion because I couldn’t see how my life and dancing were congruent. Once I found the beauty and truth hidden within his words I was forced to dig deeper and dance more fully. I challenged what it meant to be passionate about dance while not seeking that same passion outside of the dance studio daily. Inside of my insecurity about my life and dancing being mirror images of one another, I discovered I could harness more of my truth and share that on every stage. This forced me to amplify the complex simplicity I wrestle with. While investigating for myself I remembered more about who I was and wanted to become. It was life changing! I now fully accept that we know our light only because we have seen our darkness and if you are honest with yourself you will see that you truly do dance the way you live.
PD: How were you first introduced to dance, and what did you think at the time?
ELP: I was first introduced to dance as a teenager through the Detroit Public Schools System. At the time dance was considered exercise science and was being offered as an alternative to traditional physical education classes. I had always felt dance rumbling inside of me but it was not an aspiration that was culturally acceptable for a young black male growing up in Detroit. I convinced my Mom to let me enroll in my first class at 13 in place of taking gym and have been dancing ever since.
PD: Please list any upcoming events, programs, classes or shows that you would like Presenting Denver and our audiences to know about. Thank you!!
ELP: We encourage movement enthusiasts to periodically check our website or social media channels for updates regarding upcoming performances and class offerings!
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