- [Announcer] Production of "Applause," on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up, celebrate 25 years of GroundWorks Dance Theater with its founder, David Shimotakahara, and explore the contemporary art hanging in the halls of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Plus the Cleveland Orchestra enlists American bluegrass instruments for an Austrian symphony.

Welcome back to "Applause."

I'm your host, Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(soothing upbeat music) For David Shimotakahara, his life and dance has taken him from his hometown in Montreal to places like Atlanta, Boston, and Pittsburgh, but it's in northeast Ohio where the award-winning dancer and choreographer has left an indelible impression, first with the Ohio Ballet in the '80s and '90s.

And then for the last 25 years with his company, GroundWorks.

Let's look back on Shimotakahara's career as his troupe marks this milestone anniversary.

- Something about how (soothing music) that arm comes outta the roll.

I remember standing in front of this wall and seeing my shadow and just starting to play with my shadow.

And I just started to move, improvise, just dancing with my own shadow.

I remember that distinctly as kind of like this, oh, I like this.

This is, you know, this is really something that, it felt very natural.

GroundWorks, it occurred to me that dance had its essence.

It is an act of labor.

That's the only way you can do it.

It's physical hard labor.

I love that about it.

And at the same time, it is also very, very much about ideas and very much about freeing the spirit in this really imaginative way and somehow bringing the two together and synthesizing that through the art form.

So I thought of that idea in the name, GroundWorks, that it would always be connected to the ground in some way.

As much as we wanted to be transformational and to be about ideas that somehow we were always connected.

I come from a medical family actually.

My grandfather on my dad's side was the first Japanese Canadian physician in Canada, and my dad followed in his footsteps.

My father was very attuned to the arts, but it was my mother who really, really encouraged me to try to pursue something creative.

When I was an adolescent, enrolled me in theater classes.

The epiphany was actually in a movement class for actors.

The teacher of that class had us going across the floor, doing these sort of introductory jazz steps.

I remember after the class, kind of dancing home, you know, just thinking, wow, this is, you know, this is something I'd really love to do.

Very nice.

Gosh.

Yeah.

It's actually like, it's mourning your bodies.

So I started studying and in Montreal at the time, there was a blossoming of a dance boom.

My first ballet teacher, he sat me down, he said, "You're the crookedest thing that's ever walked into a dance studio, as far as I'm concerned."

He said, "But we're gonna work.

We're gonna work really, really hard."

Even things like just stretching me, like putting weight on my back or my hips and just stretching me.

And really broke down the basics of what then was just this, you know, mystery to me in terms of the vocabulary and the technique of ballet.

- [Dancer] One, two.

- I wasn't just crooked.

I was, you know, I was short, I didn't have the proportions of the classical line or anything like that.

- [Dancer] Okay.

- Okay?

I think I was just really confused and kinda lost at that stage of my life.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I had no sense of myself and it really helped me think of myself in this different way.

I felt I could transform myself as a dancer.

It was a lifeline, you know, and I clung to that.

I was determined, (laughing softly) you know, that because I wanted to do this, I would.

And fortunately I had, you know, enough people along the way give me the nudge or the encouragement at just the right times to continue.

I met Pandora, same period, you know, just starting out taking classes.

I ended up taking ballet classes at the ballet academy of the major ballet company in Montreal, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.

I saw Pandora across the studio one class.

She was the ballerina.

We were just so enamored with the idea of becoming professional dancers and being in the dance (indistinct).

We had an amazing kind of period where we were studying and getting freelance work, both Pandora and I.

We married in '81.

I had heard about Ohio Ballet and this sort of unique company and I said, "Let's, you know, let's audition."

And we did.

And Heinz Poll offered us both positions.

And so that brought us to Ohio.

It was 1983.

Heinz at the time, he experimented with really mixing the repertory up between contemporary dance and classical ballet.

Heinz ran this organization in a really sensible way.

We didn't have a lot of frills.

He believed in the primacy, the importance of just putting movement, dance, bodies in space, front and center without a scenery and a lot of dressing.

That kind of lean, economical approach to producing certainly influenced me and trying to figure out how to start a small startup company.

And then his choice of repertory and that range.

We started GroundWorks just with this belief in the potential for new work.

So by the time, shortly before I decided I would retire, which happened to coincide also with Heinz announcing his retirement in 1998, I was eager, itchy to try to do something on my own.

I didn't think at the time I wanted to continue to perform.

My body was feeling pretty ragged.

I had had some knee surgeries.

I thought this feels like the right time.

There's an attitude, a willingness, and ecosystem here in northeast Ohio, which is extraordinary.

And that, for me, I'm grateful and what it's allowed GroundWorks to do.

What we do is highly, highly skilled.

But how do we take what we do as artists and use that in some way to empower creativity in others?

I think of my legacy more in the immediate, like the exchange, the experiences I have had with different artists, different collaborators over time.

It's an environment, it's an attitude.

It's a culture of creativity and collaboration and connection that is very special.

If you talk about a legacy, I would hope that could continue in some way.

And it's not just dependent on me.

To be able to bring people together, to collaborate together and try new things, hopefully to create things that haven't been experienced before.

It's a gift.

(music ending) - [Kabir] In March, GroundWorks Dance Theater celebrates its 25th anniversary, performing with the Theron Brown Trio in both Akron and Cleveland.

(quiet intense music) Akron's Dominic Moore-Dunson has examined issues of race through his choreography for years.

In fact, he was working on a dance piece about police violence when Jayland Walker was shot to death by Akron Police in 2022.

When northeast Ohio observed the one year anniversary of Walker's death, Moore-Dunson debuted his work, "inCOPnegro."

(saxophone playing) - So it's called "inCOPnegro: Aftermath," because we're really looking at what happens in the wake of police violence in the community, and how do we heal from that.

So we're trying to talk about, after all is said and done, after the news outlets go away, after there's no more viral video, and there's this feeling that no one really cares anymore, what is that community left to do and how do they heal with the trauma that they've experienced?

♪ And fighting the war within myself ♪ ♪ Playing the role ♪ ♪ But all the chords can play themselves ♪ - So Floco is the essence of that character called the questioner, who's spending the entire time questioning, am I a hero or am I a villain?

♪ For me, the (indistinct) ♪ ♪ Shield reflects the true society ♪ ♪ You want to change the world ♪ ♪ You need to look at the proprieties ♪ ♪ Hero of villain advice ♪ ♪ Versus a dilemma (indistinct) ♪ The questioner is a character that is in between two worlds.

So it's in between the community and how the community is responding to a current tragedy, and being on the side of, we'll say law enforcement for, you know, air quotes.

♪ It's a war going on outside ♪ ♪ You better pick a side ♪ - When I first started, I was really curious about the Black officer experience because I've just never heard a Black officer talk about their experience.

♪ It's way too rare that a wave could ever stem the tide ♪ - I'm not the mouthpiece for the performance, but being the only lyricist, I do understand my responsibility of every time I open my mouth and I say something from my character in the performance, I have a very big responsibility to make sure that we're leading the story where it needs to go.

If I need to be by this light right here, so that triggers Dominic to move this way, it's the same thing with the lyrics, like how I perform and how I move and how I write is going to affect the rest of the show.

- Well, George Floyd was murdered in, it was really the days and the weeks afterwards.

So me and my wife were pregnant at the time with our first child, and at one point I realized that I'm gonna have to teach my Black child about police.

And I just never considered that that's a step in my trajectory in my life.

So over the years, I think like a lot of Black people have had run up with the police.

Up to this point, I estimate about 45 times since I was a child up until now.

- My experiences were just always knowing that this interaction can go from parking ticket to fatal and not knowing how that's gonna go.

Every situation is kind of like that.

(saxophone playing) - The week after I got my license, I was at soccer practice in (indistinct), Ohio and it was February and it was cold and it was snowing, and I got stopped by a police officer, and it was the first time I got stopped by a police officer as a new driver.

Again, I've been driving for a week.

And then the second cruiser came in and the third cruiser came, and then a fourth cruiser came.

I was asked to get out the car, I was put on the hood of the car.

You know, I was patted down and this kind of whole moment happened for like a good 20, 25 minutes of being questioned and things like that.

And I'm in soccer shorts in the middle of winter, and then at the end, they're like, "Oh, your tail light was out."

And then they let me go.

(saxophone continuing to play) When it first starts happening to you, there's a lot of fear.

There's some shame because you assume you're doing something wrong and that you're the reason you get in trouble.

But then after a while, there is a level of numbness to the feeling, because it's something that you expect.

So now if I get stopped by a police officer now, there's like a routine that you go through.

You kind of know what's gonna happen.

You're like, well, yep, this makes sense.

It's been a while.

The feeling kinda lessens over time.

- [Crowd] Jayland was murdered!

Jayland was murdered!

- When Jayland Walker was murdered, one of the things I started really paying attention to is how everyone was reacting to it.

And how you see that cycle of this explosion of people protesting and people really trying to show that this is wrong.

(Floco rapping indistinctly) - He was challenging me to potentially be a part of something that made me uncomfortable the second that he said it.

And artistically, those are the kinds of things that I try to be a part of.

Or I try to put myself in positions to be able to grow lyrically, production wise, artistically, just for my mindset.

Like he was challenging my mindset to have a conversation about something.

And I was just like, I never want to have this conversation, let alone publicly through my art form.

(saxophone playing) - Need to start talking about, well, how do we heal, and how do we not talk about healing like this kumbaya thing where everything's gonna be good.

It's complicated, it's messy.

Not everyone gets along in the healing process.

And that's really ultimately what "Aftermath" is about.

- I hope they come in open-minded, and I hope they leave open-minded.

If they wanted there to be police brutality, then be open-minded about that.

Community healing, be open-minded about that.

Black men, Black people not being a monolith, Black men being able to be soft, to be heard, to express grief in whatever way that is.

Whether it's crying, whether it's anger, whether it's dance, whether it's rap, just being open-minded to a plethora of themes, the way that you were when you came in.

- It's a gift to the community.

We as artists, have an ability to see all the unsaid things in society and in a city and in a community.

So we took all those unsaid things and molded it and created it into something to hand the community for them to do with as they will.

And I just hope they feel the care that we put into this for them.

- I feel like it's the perfect time for us to be doing this show, because the concept has shifted to being around community healing.

- A couple years ago I would've said, this is really important, because it's just conversation's happened nationally.

Like it's happening over and over.

We have to have this conversation.

But now I think it's important, 'cause it's home.

It's here, it's now, it's what's happening to us in this community and there's a lot of pain in this community, but we still have to figure out, so what do we do now?

It's important to figure out how to start that conversation and have that conversation.

We're not the only ones having this conversation, but we're the only ones doing it this way.

(saxophone playing) (upbeat music) - [Kabir] After surviving a refugee camp during World War II, Audra Skuodas came to Ohio and began a new life as an artist.

On the next "Applause," meet the late Lithuanian American as her paintings and drawings received renewed attention years after her death.

Plus, we honor Ohio's aviation history with the right company factory murals in Dayton.

And celebrate the launch of Ideastream's new 24/7 music channel, JazzNEo, all that and more on the next round of "Applause."

Hey, we're looking for ideas about all arts and culture, great and small in northeast Ohio.

So if you've got an idea to share with the Ideastream arts team, send an email to arts@ideastream.org.

Did you know the halls of justice in Columbus are home to a permanent art collection?

Let's travel to the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center where the Ohio Supreme Court keeps company with contemporary art.

- When art is in a public place, it is accessible.

It adds a dimension to both the interior of the building and then a dimension to the lives of the people who see it.

- Chief Justice Moyer had so many passions, including art and architecture, and when we moved into this building, then the Ohio Judicial Center, but now it's Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center, he approached me about helping the court build an art collection.

We pulled in Mary Gray.

- I got a phone call from this woman by the name of Ruthie Newcomer, introduced herself as a staff at the Supreme Court, the Ohio Judicial Center.

She had gotten my name from a colleague and wondered if I would be willing and able to help with their collection of portraits.

I was initially asked to do the condition reports for all of the portraits in the building.

So I did that.

And then that rolled into the conversation about acquiring contemporary art for the building.

And that, away we went.

- We talked with gallerists, artists all throughout Ohio and built the core of a collection.

- Our job was to bring it in, and then have a discussion with Chief Justice Moyer and Steve Holland on which pieces would work best.

But Ruthie and I think we really were very thoughtful about where in the state we were looking.

We tried to do the entire state of Ohio, or at least the four quadrants, and we tried to bring as much diversity as we could amongst the artists that would be represented in the collection.

- The experience was incredible.

I love art.

I was high energy about it.

It was so much fun to be up and about looking at all of this work, and then coming back to the court and having the chief justice be so happy and excited about what he was seeing.

- The artwork displayed here brings order.

It brings symmetry to a chaotic world in much the same way that law creates order in a civil society.

Tonight, a new generation of artists take their rightful place in the mission of this facility as a monument of the people of Ohio.

- One of my favorite pieces is a wood cut that is hanging in what we call the robing room.

And that's where, as you would imagine, the judge would put on the robe before we march out into, you know, single file and take the bench.

And it's right near the elevator.

So I see it coming and going, and it's a wood cut.

And it reminds me of the rural, you know, landscape of Ohio.

- I always got the sense from Chief Justice Moyer, it wasn't just about bringing in pretty pictures into the building, but I truly believe that he was very supportive of artists and understood the importance of art in all of our lives.

Chief Justice Moyer appreciated the beauty that artwork would bring to the building, but he also wanted, I believe, to support individual artists, particularly in Ohio, and to give purpose and meaning to those who were going to see the artwork in the building.

Artwork can change lives.

- I think that when the art came into the building, it was exciting.

It was exciting for the staff.

Some people were very involved in art.

Some people had not been involved in art, and so to have them live with art was incredible, because they were already through the building and the architecture of the building.

Everyone was very keen about what they were seeing.

Their visual acuity, I think, was really running high.

And then Amina Robinson and Nicholas Hill came in and did a brown bag lunch to talk about art in general as well as their art.

And I think 99% of the staff came to that.

It was a pleasure.

- Rarely when I'm talking about the arts in Columbus, Ohio, do anyone, do they not know the name Amina Robinson.

Amina's work and Amina as a human being has had such a huge impact here in Ohio.

In my opinion, it is very important to have Kojo Camu represented in the courts collection, because Kojo was such a critical voice in the Columbus Black community through his photography.

And I just think it's terrific that we have an example of his work in the collection, and he will be remembered forevermore here in the building.

Several years ago, it was probably about the time I was working on the court project that I saw a sign out in front of one of the local framers and it said, "Art is not a luxury."

And he had bumper stickers made.

And I think we still see them around town.

And I think that that statement exists here, that it isn't just for aesthetic pleasure, but it's also supporting artists throughout the state of Ohio.

(music ending) - [Kabir] Court is adjourned for this round of "Applause."

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, sending you off with a fun bit of orchestration from the Cleveland Orchestra that you can watch in full on the orchestra's app, Adella.

Franz Welser-Möst leads a unique lineup here featuring banjos and mandolins.

This is Austrian composer Ernst Krenek's 1928 tribute to American jazz, the "Kleine Symphonie."

Enjoy.

(upbeat orchestra music) (orchestra music ending) (upbeat music) (music ending) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.