Kat Cameron
Pierre Clark (left) and Kevin Ormsby in “Cooya! Mans an’ mans.”
“I always expect a lot from my audiences,” says Christopher Walker, the Jamaica-born associate professor of dance at UW-Madison. His upcoming concert is no exception. In FACING Home: Love & Redemption, Walker asks audiences to contrast the homophobia that is deep-seated in Jamaican culture with the sunny and loving vibe of the country’s main music export, reggae.
The contemporary dance concert is a collaboration with longtime friend and fellow Jamaican Kevin Ormsby, a Toronto-based choreographer and founder of KasheDance. After launching in Madison Nov. 19-21, the show will tour to other locations in the Midwest, Toronto and the Caribbean.
In FACING Home, Walker and Ormsby use the music of Bob Marley to explore themes of love, redemption and hope, exposing the paradox of Marley’s hugely popular songs preaching justice while oppression in Jamaica — in particular against gays and lesbians — is still such a reality.
The new works had their genesis in Walker’s project FACING Home: A Phobia, which premiered in New York City in 2013. That project examined the exodus of LGBT people from countries where living “out” is not safe. “Many gay men and women can’t participate and have access like everyone else due to their sexual orientation and are forced to move elsewhere to self-actualize and develop,” says Walker, whose own story involves exodus. Walker says he would not have been able to live openly with his partner in Jamaica: “I would have had to spend half the day just figuring out how to survive.”
Walker is nervous about bringing the production to the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, “scared as fuck,” in fact, about the March 2016 performance at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies. Incidents of violent gay-bashing have been reported there, including one captured on video where 2,000 people attacked a man after a rumor spread that he had made advances toward a student in a restroom. But Walker is hopeful that the performance will generate conversation about the stigmas of homosexuality and rally the LGBT community.
He’s also feeling positive about the progress made in the quest for acceptance and equality in Madison. Walker married his longtime partner last spring, and he serves on the board of the Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools (GSAFE).
FACING Home will play at Lathrop Hall’s Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space. The Nov. 19 performance is geared toward high school and college students and will feature a talkback session. Proceeds from the Nov. 20 performance will benefit GSAFE.
