(drum rolling) - [Mark] In this edition of "Artistic Horizons," (hi hat shimmering) expressing oneself through movement.

- I feel that dance is a synthesis between mind, body, and spirit, and so when I dance, I am sharing my deepest truth.

- [Mark] An art fair unlike any other.

- We wanna make sure that our galleries, that they're able to give their artists the best platform possible with this show.

(downtempo music) ♪ No one here to guide you ♪ - [Mark] The impressive career of an opera singer.

- I feel like my whole life has been a completed circle at this point because I started out teaching, wanted to perform.

I've always done both.

(piano chord resonating) (quizzical music) - Art as a cultural exchange.

(Javier speaks foreign language) It's all ahead on this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

(rhythmic jazz music) Hello, I'm Mark Cernero, and this is "Artistic Horizons."

From being a soloist with the Rod Rodgers Dance Company to teaching the next generation, to writing her memoir, dancer, choreographer, and scholar Halifu Osumare embraces movement.

We visit the artist in California to learn more about her life's journey.

(expressive piano music) - Well, I think I kinda stumbled into dance.

It wasn't that I always felt like I was going to be a dancer.

As an African American, I love to dance to the latest social dance music and would go to parties on Saturday nights as a teenager, but it wasn't until I started taking modern dance in high school that I realized that dance could actually be a profession.

I had to get better technically and in all styles of dance, ballet, modern, Caribbean.

And I started also studying African dance and the Dunham Technique.

- [Narrator] With a career that spans over 40 years.

Halifu Osumare is an internationally-renowned dancer, choreographer, scholar, and researcher whose work and contributions are noted as defining moments in dance history.

- I think my dance career reflects my sense of independence and rebelliousness because I actually left the United States as a young 21-year-old in the late '60s and lived in Europe for three years, all on my own.

My mother thought I was crazy (chuckles), but through dance, I was able to move through Spain, France, and then ended up in Scandinavia for a year, in Copenhagen, where I started one of the first modern dance companies, and then ending up also in Stockholm, Sweden, where I taught in one of the main ballet academies, jazz dance.

- [Narrator] Halifu's world travels would set the tone as she returned to California with a broader portfolio of experiences, including dancing with the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, where she performed at some of the top venues in New York.

- Please have your tickets ready.

Let me read them and you weep.

- Starting in four minutes, folks.

Please take your seats.

- So I had all of that wealth of experience, but I still felt like there was something missing, and it was my self-funded trip to West Africa, particularly Ghana, West Africa, in 1976 that kind of really solidified my path.

So when you put the idea of how blackness has been perceived with the dancing body, you know, you're talking about layers of marginalization but also layers of a kind of knowledge base that we are just beginning to understand (rhythmic music) the idea that I'm in search of a kind of truth about culture and society because I've experienced it in the act of dancing, that I am sharing knowledge.

And for me, that is a part of how African Americans in particular have survived our experience here in the United States, is through the dance and the music as a survival tool.

(rhythmic music) I feel that dance is a synthesis between mind, body, and spirit, and so when I dance, I am sharing my deepest truth, my deepest knowledge base.

So my first memoir, "Dancing in Blackness," published in 2018, and the current one, "Dancing the Afrofuture," in 2024, I'm trying to look at my life as a microcosm in relationship to the larger macrocosm of the constantly shifting, churning social, political, and historical scene.

- [Narrator] As Halifu looks back over her extensive career, her many books, her teachings as a professor, her work as a choreographer, she hopes that through the power or the language of dance that she can give people a solid blueprint for the future.

- The young people who have studied with me and who are gonna pass on what I gave to them.

And I found in through doing my book tours that a lot of my past students come to those tours, and that is so fulfilling, so fulfilling.

(reflective music) And I'm hoping that my legacy also lasts just through personal memory and people teaching their kids what I gave them, not just about me but about the principles that I have tried to inculcate.

I find that artists are in the vanguard of where we're going, you know, in terms of humanity and its development and evolution.

Artists are always, you know, like maybe one step ahead of everybody else, letting us see the possibilities of what we can grow into as human beings.

Dance has brought me to myself and who I am as a human being on this planet, and so for my limited time here, I feel like I have found my true self through dance, and I have been able to embody that wisdom.

(uplifting music) (jazzy music) - And now for the artist quote of the week.

(jazzy music) Art Basel Miami Beach is widely recognized as the leading art show of the Americas.

Each year, artists and galleries head to the state of Florida to showcase striking examples of modern and contemporary art.

Let's take a look back at the 2024 edition of this renowned fair.

(downtempo music) - Hi, I'm Bridget Finn, I'm the director of Art Basel Miami Beach, and welcome to the 22nd year of Art Basel Miami Beach.

Art Basel Miami Beach was sited in Miami Beach 22 years ago.

The main reasons was that it is the geographical nexus point, North, South, and Central America, and our makeup of the show reflects that.

This year we have 286 exhibitors, hailing from 38 countries.

You have 2/3 of the galleries from the Americas.

We have 19 galleries from Brazil this year.

We have galleries coming from Colombia and Argentina and also Mexico.

(downtempo music) (lively music) - I am here representing MAKHU.

It's a solo booth of the Huni Kuin Artist Movement from the western portion of the Amazon in the border between Brazil and Peru.

Let's sell paintings to buy land, which is the Amazon forest, to improve people's life from the fact that they sell their paintings, they make the money, and they reinvest in their community that way to protect the forest.

- You're standing in the Meridians sector, which features 17 large-scale projects that are really institutional in scale.

So this is a very international group of works.

- This piece was for seven months in Venice, living there in the Peruvian Pavilion, and now we have bring it here.

It's a photogram, made in the Peruvian Amazonia.

The first metals long photos in paper that I put in the Amazonia, in the floor, and I put this 30-meters tree over this paper.

But when I was just beginning to try to do this, suddenly become a storm, and the storm form lightning in the sky, expose the piece.

(chimes twinkling) (upbeat music) - You will see a lot of very experimental works by our more emerging galleries.

We wanna make this show welcoming and enticing for everyone.

We wanna make sure that our galleries, that they're able to give their artists the best platform possible with this show.

We wanna make sure our guests feel welcomed and that they're learning and really able to experience new art in our halls.

So making sure those balances are all in check and people are enjoying and having a good time is exciting, actually.

We're gonna continue to build on what has been in place for the past 22 years, and always work to evolve and make the show more exciting and interesting and efficient as we move forward.

(lively jazz music) - Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

(lively jazz music) Owing to her vocal talent, opera singer Margaret Chalker has had a decades-long career that has taken her around the world.

Up next, we head to the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York, where Chalker is an educator, to meet the artist and hear her perform.

Have a listen.

- My name is Margaret Chalker, and I am an assistant professor of voice at Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York.

I went to college to be a music educator, coming from a family of music educators, but while there, I had a very good teacher, and my voice developed each year so that by my junior year, I got a very good role, the Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro," which has been one of the most important operas in my whole life, And really lik the Hollywood stories, there was an agent in the audience on opening night, and he said, you know, "Come to New York.

I'll make you a star."

And my parents said, "You can go for the weekend."

(laughing) And but I got the bug.

I loved being on stage, and I was very fortunate.

Everything really fell into place.

I had quite a winding career because I was so expecting to be what a girl from the '50s is supposed to be, married, children, and I was gonna be a teacher.

- [Narrator] After singing in venues across the United States, Margaret decided she needed a more stable life for her family.

- So I went to Europe and was extremely fortunate and got into one of the best companies right off, and in Germany.

I was able to have my daughter, and all the performances were in that city, and I could sing and go home, kiss her goodnight, and it was very nice life.

And after that two years in Germany, I went to Switzerland, and I stayed there 25 years.

I was singing opera with the Opera House of Zurich.

It was a fabulous, fabulous place to be.

It's one of the top opera houses in the world, and I sang with people who are famous now, Piotr Beczala, who's singing "Rigoletto" at the Met.

Thomas Hampson, and I stood on stage.

Ah, the experience was heavenly.

I mean, a world-class orchestra, world-class colleagues, world-class chorus, it's really like being carried on hands, really, because we had coaches and people that make sure the part is ready before the directors arrived.

The directors, the conductors that I got there, were world class.

- [Narrator] As an opera singer, Margaret has performed in a variety of different languages.

- The typical ones are are German, French, Italian, of course, and then I did get to sing in Russian, and I've sung in Czech.

I've sung in Hebrew.

(bright piano music) So far, that's about all for me.

- [Narrator] At age 62, Margaret retired from the Zurich Opera House.

She moved to the North Country of New York to be closer to her daughter, who teaches first grade in Massena, and to her granddaughters.

- I love the North Country and St. Lawrence River, and I live on the Grasse River.

And I stayed in Massena.

The first four years, I was just being grandmother.

I drove my granddaughters around to their dance lessons and school, and I was at their concerts.

And then an opening came up here, and it's offered me a brand new life.

I was able to take this job, and I'm in my fifth year now.

And there's been a lot for me to learn to be in academia, but I wouldn't trade it.

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I feel like my whole life has been a completed circle at this point because I started out teaching, wanted to perform.

I've always done both, and I'm lucky.

I'm very, very fortunate.

- [Narrator] Margaret is an assistant professor at the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where she teaches voice to approximately 24 students.

- We have to teach the voice (student vocalizing) because it's very easy for people.

Quell.

Really get yourself out.

To sing in a way that after a while (student vocalizing) may ruin their voice or not allow it to bloom as much as it should.

And of course, the thing about opera singing or classically, you know, people don't like these terms so much anymore, but what we consider classical music for voice is very demanding, with louds, with softs, with highs and lows and fast coloratura, which is fast-moving notes or long, sustained notes.

Those don't happen without training.

With singing opera, (student vocalizing) you're on stage with an orchestra of about a hundred, often, in the pit, and you sing without any microphone.

So a lot of the study is to get the voice so that it projects freely, equally if you're singing pianissimo or forte, soft or loud, so that it carries to the last seat in the house, and that takes instruction thing.

You have to know what you really want.

When I was 22 and got married, I remember saying to my husband, "Well, I have to sing."

I made no more instruction on that than that.

But I have to sing.

And when I finished my masters, I said, "I wanna be as good a singer as I can be in as good a house with as good an orchestra as possible," and that happened.

So if you can be clear about your goals and know who you are, I think that will get you a long way.

(reflective piano music) ♪ No one's here to guide you ♪ ♪ Now you're on your own ♪ ♪ Only beside you ♪ ♪ Still you're not alone ♪ ♪ No one is alone truly ♪ ♪ No one is alone ♪ ♪ Sometimes people leave you ♪ ♪ Halfway through the wood ♪ ♪ Others may deceive you ♪ ♪ You decide what's good ♪ ♪ You decide alone ♪ ♪ But no one is alone ♪ ♪ People make mistakes ♪ ♪ Fathers, mothers ♪ ♪ People make mistakes ♪ ♪ Holding to their own ♪ ♪ Thinking they're alone ♪ ♪ Honor their mistakes ♪ ♪ Everybody makes ♪ ♪ One another's terrible mistakes ♪ ♪ Witches can be right ♪ ♪ Giants can be good ♪ ♪ You decide what's right ♪ ♪ You decide what's good ♪ ♪ Just remember ♪ ♪ Someone is on your side ♪ ♪ Someone else is not ♪ ♪ While you're seeing your side ♪ ♪ Maybe you forgot ♪ ♪ They are not alone ♪ ♪ No one is alone ♪ ♪ Hard to see the light now ♪ ♪ Just don't let it go ♪ ♪ Things will come out right now ♪ ♪ We can make it so ♪ ♪ Someone is on your side ♪ ♪ No one is alone ♪ (rhythmic jazz music) - And now here's a look at a few notable dates in art history.

(rhythmic jazz music) In his work, Cuban artist and scholar Javier Martinez Herrera values the exchange of cultures.

In this segment, we take a trip to Cuba to hear from the artist and find out more about his recent exhibition, TEXTUM.

(gentle music) (Javier speaking Spanish) (bird cawing) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (gentle music) (Javier speaking Spanish) (gentle music) (gentle music intensifies) (Javier speaking Spanish) (Javier speaking Spanish) (dramatic music) (rhythmic jazz music) - And that wraps it up for this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

For more arts and culture, visit wpbstv.org.

Until next time, I'm Mark Cernero.

Thanks for watching.

(rhythmic jazz music) (gentle music)