For a modern, fresh approach to Black history, turn to the founder and artistic director of Urban Souls Dance Company, Harrison Guy.
The choreographer will celebrate Black History Month and his company’s 20th anniversary season with Souls of Black Houston, a dance concert scheduled for February 10 at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
The program will include two guest works from alumni of the company, “M/W: lessons” by Dwayne Cook and “Distract me from the Mirror” by Uwazi Zamani and Trent Williams, Jr.; Walter J. Hull’s Ernie Barnes-inspired “Sugar Shack”; and two works by Guy, “Black Bodies in White Spaces” and “Colored Carnegie.”
The African American History Research Center, formerly known as the African American Library, at the Gregory School is where Guy first became aware of the Houston Colored Carnegie Library, which in 1913 became the only library open to African Americans in Texas not located at an African American college. It was several years earlier, however, that a group of African American teachers were refused service at Houston’s public library. The incident led E. O. Smith to open a one-room library in Houston’s Fourth Ward and successfully petition the city to request a grant from Andrew Carnegie for a separate library.
“When I read the story, I was like, ‘Wait a minute,’” says Guy. “’Black people built their own library? That’s an incredible story. Why don't we know this?’”
Guy sat on the idea for “Colored Carnegie” for almost a decade, saying that because of the “specialness” of the story, he “wanted to make sure it got on the stage that it deserved.” That stage came along in November 2021, when Guy received a commission from Performing Arts Houston for a work to be presented at Jones Hall.
“I would probably never get a chance to put a piece on that stage because we can't afford to rent Jones Hall, so it was the perfect opportunity to try and do ‘Colored Carnegie’ on a really, really great Houston stage,” says Guy.
Even though the story of the Houston Colored Carnegie Library “could easily be doom and gloom about the fact that they couldn't get in a city facility,” Guy says that the story the piece tells is about how people “came together and were leaders,” with a section dedicated to Emma Myers, the city’s first Black librarian, and the aspect of allyship making an appearance, as Houston Public Library’s first head librarian Julia Ideson, a white woman, trained Myers.
“The library would not have existed without a librarian…and you can't tell the story without the person who trained the librarian. I think it’s all intertwined,” explains Guy, adding that this approach to Black history feels more joyous and empowering. “We're coming from a perspective of how can we honor the truth about what happened and why there is a Black History Month, but also inspire each other and let these stories inspire us to do more.”
Guy considers the decision to present “Colored Carnegie,” which features an original score by Dr. John Cornelius and set design by Edgar Guajardo, a “no-brainer” and also shares that almost two dozen Black librarians will be honored at the show with a small gift and a lot of gratitude.
“Librarians don't get a lot of publicity, they don't get a lot of love…so I thought it was a unique opportunity to elevate a profession that is very important but goes unsung,” says Guy. “We're going to thank them for opening our worlds to other worlds through literacy and books.”
“Black Bodies in White Spaces,” Guy’s second work on the program, debuted at the Moody Center for the Arts as “Black Bodies in White Spaces: A Performance Ritual.” It was developed with Black students at Rice University during his time as an artist-in-residence at the school’s Center for Engaged Research and Collaborate Learning.
“Because they were really struggling with belonging, I was trying to create with them something they could do on their own, repeatedly, that makes them feel affirmed,” explains Guy. One example of such a ritual, Guy says, would be learning the names of five Black students from the early days of Rice and saying their names aloud on a consistent basis to tap into that energy. “I was trying to get them to understand the power of doing something over and over and over.”
The rituals created during the artist-in-residence program helped to do the work of changing spaces on Rice campus, because when Black people are able to enter a space where "they're normally the outlier or the only one,” Guy says he feels “those spaces should be changed.”
“I believe wholeheartedly that if we're allowed to show up in these spaces as our full, authentic selves and navigate the spaces like that, it changes the space for the good,” says Guy. “As Black people, we're leaving our mark in these spaces to make them better, to make them more inclusive, to make them more expansive. A lot of times people think these conversations feel focused more on exclusion, but really it becomes more about expansion, it becomes more about growing, and it's much more open than what society has allowed us to believe about these topics.”
Guy says that as a staged piece, “Black Bodies in White Spaces” is “an artistic showing” of what those Black students came up with for the original performance, adding that “their experiences, their works, their ideas will always live inside this piece that we perform.”
Now celebrating the company’s 20th anniversary season, Guy says that he’s getting to “reflect in pockets, but ultimately my reflection is really leading me to be grateful for having the courage to start a company out of, what I saw at the time, a space that was not very affirming…I’m also very grateful that I was able to be laser-focused on local stories.”
Though Guy says you don’t get a lot of national publicity or opportunities to tour focusing on local stories, the company does “get a lot of gratitude from Houstonians,” adding that “I'm glad that I decided to do that, because I think that's what makes the company really special.”
Souls of Black Houston is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 10, at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit thehobbycenter.org. $20-$87.50.
