Iyun Ashani Harrison, associate professor of the practice of Dance, was one of four North Carolina-based artists commissioned by the American Dance Festival to present world-premiere pieces in this year’s “Made in NC” ADF Debuts event.
Harrison, who is also the artistic and executive director of the Durham-based dance company Ballet Ashani, is known for amplifying underrepresented voices in ballet. In September 2023, he premiered a ballet adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel “Giovanni’s Room,” featuring a racially diverse cast. Viewers called it “a triumph.”
A graduate of The Juilliard School (BFA) and Hollins University (MFA), Harrison is the co-editor of “Antiracism in Ballet Teaching,” an anthology inviting dance professionals to address systemic exclusions and create inclusive pedagogies. At Duke, Harrison strives to expose his students to different perspectives in ballet, welcoming professional dancers into his classrooms and designing innovative courses that put art into a socially conscious framework.
We sat down with Harrison to discuss “Dance of the Olympiad (2024),” his newest choreography, as well as his approach to teaching and the role played by his studies in becoming the artist-scholar he is today.
Q: What was the inspiration for “Dance of the Olympiad (2024),” and how did you identify the elements of dance you used to create and choreograph it?
I wanted to go back to my roots in neoclassical ballet. The ballet is inspired by the work of George Balanchine and Ulysses Dove, who was an African-American choreographer who died in the mid 90s. He danced with Merce Cunningham's dance company and went on to choreograph for the New York City Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet and the American Ballet Theater. Dove choreographed “Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven” to Arvö Part, the composer I used for “Dance of the Olympiad (2024).”
However, I take a different approach to the music than Dove. Mine is not narrative-driven, it's musical visualization and addresses racial and sexual identity. Nonetheless, bodies tell stories, too. In my cast we see different kinds of people — which is not typical in mainstream ballet — persons who identify as African-American, Asian-American, Caucasian-American and Latin-American make up a small group of dancers, speaking to one of my ideals of inclusivity in ballet.
I also considered queerness when I choreographed the piece. Though there is a heteronormative pas de deux, there are also sections for two men, two women and a pas de trois for two men and a woman.
And my final consideration was that we are in the Olympiad — the year of the Olympics — so I titled it “Dance of the Olympiad (2024).” I wanted the ballet to be grounded in this moment and highlight the dancers’ athleticism and power.
Q: Tell me about your years at Juilliard, and how have they contributed to your growth as a dancer and a professor.
During my time at Juilliard, Benjamin Harkarvy, who cofounded the Netherlands Dans Theater — a famous contemporary ballet company — was the director of the Dance Division. The aesthetic was very ballet-driven then. I had ballet in Jamaica, but I hadn't been able to train intensively. Juilliard was an opportunity to deepen my dance studies for four years — it was a thorough artistic education.
We trained in ballet, modern dance — Graham technique, Limón technique, Laban movement analysis, and I loved choreographing, so I took improvisation and choreography as well. Any time I could get a piece on stage, I would jump at the opportunity.
I think the main lesson I learned at Juilliard was how to think about my dancing in a holistic way — not in parts: “Oh, this is Iyun, the ballet dancer. This is Iyun, the contemporary dancer. This is Iyun, the choreographer.” The artistic director allowed us to discover a composite identity. You can dance ballet, modern and jazz, be a choreographer and a lighting designer. Even studying technical theater and designing lights influenced how I thought about dance.
Additionally, studying dance at a music school, we were required to complete two years of musical training. We listened to “great” pieces of music, primarily by European or European-American composers. For example, listening to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” does something to a young person. Trying to understand and appreciate complex music, both rhythmically and tonally, impacts your aesthetic interests, and modernism and post-modernism become a part of your creative palette.
I choreographed a ballet-based piece titled “Of Roots and Stone” for my senior capstone project. I collaborated with a composer, Justine Chen, and had sets built for the dance. After the concert our director, Harkarvy, invited me to present the ballet on The Juilliard Dance Ensemble the following year. It was my first professional commission! The commission helped people in the NYC dance community see me as a choreographer, and showed me that I could perform and choreograph alongside each other.
Q: As a choreographer, how do you approach new projects such as this one? And how do you incorporate new techniques into that work?
Music is almost always first for me. Even when I am working conceptually, I'm always asking, "How can the music help me tell this story?" For instance, when I created “Giovanni’s Room,” I worked with music from Maurice Ravel's catalogue and new music composed by Aaron Brown, a Boston-based composer. I was investigating the juxtaposition of the new and old music and how they influenced the perception of time and place represented in the ballet. With “Dance of the Olympiad (2024)”, I defined the ballet's content by the musical structure and dynamics. I wanted to work with music that was powerful, exciting and had a strong downbeat.
The way I choreograph on the downbeats in ballet is not new, but not many choreographers use the approach. The movement accents feel more like how Jamaican and West African dance traditions interpret music — not a classical Europeanist approach. The dancers can perform the entire piece without music because they understand the internal rhythms of the movement vocabulary. Sometimes, I hear them coaching each other, "No, it’s on the downbeat."
The ballet’s vocabulary is also crucial. For this ballet I thought about hybridizing Africanist movement and ballet. There’s a throughline of isolating and accenting the pelvis, flexing the wrists and using flatfooted chugging steps to make the more balletic phrases more dynamic.
The vocabulary also featured queering gesture. We have small but critical moments where the dancers' balletic port de bras are punctuated with actions like this [Harrison makes a “voguing” hand gesture]. It’s abstracted, but those of us who know, understand that I’m referencing voguing. Or there are other moments where the dancers pose with swayed backs or sit in their hips, and their body shape communicates queer archetypes.
I am always thinking about “What information am I telling my audience?” It's very easy when the dancers are this gorgeous to perpetuate traditional ballet choreography. The women wear pointe shoes, so a man turns them — that’s an obvious choice. So then, I think, "Well, what happens if I put two men together?" And I don't want the audience to think, "Oh, that's the woman and that’s the man in a same-sex partnership," so I double down of the passion and intimacy driving each couple’s interactions. Even when the partnership is heteronormative, I work to empower the woman to initiate and control movement in similar ways to the man.
I don't know if the typical audience member will see any of what I’ve described, but these are my concerns. What are the gender politics communicating? How am I thinking about the musical structure? How are my and many of my dancers' queer and racial identities represented?
Q: You often have professional dancers visit your classroom. From your students' perspective, would you say working with these dancers gives them a glimpse of the atmosphere of professional dancing?
Duke students hold themselves to an impossibly high standard, and many of them, especially the advanced groups, are well-trained and could have pursued professional dance careers. It's unique for a school that's so academically rigorous to also have students who are trained to a pre-professional level.
So, when I invite professional dancers into a process with Duke students, I ask them to model what the students should see. I don't know that I'm asking my students to model the professionals, because that's not what they're here for. However, I certainly ask them to aspire for individual excellence and they meet that expectation. They don't have to take ballet, but they choose to come each semester, even though I push them hard.
I've heard Kayla Lihardo, the artistic director of Devils en Pointe, say she can feel how the energy in the rehearsal room changes when professional dancers join them, because of their dynamic use of space, high energy and artistry. The students feel the impetus to match the professionals’ energy and work ethic.
I have a friend, Akua Noni Parker — who recently left the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater after dancing with Dance Theatre of Harlem and Cincinnati Ballet — who visited, and she was watching rehearsal, and offered to give the students feedback. They were so excited to be in the space with her. Similarly, we hosted guest artist Graciela Kozak, who teaches at The Ailey School and Peridance in New York, and it was satisfying to see the students become inspired.
It's important to me that the Dance Program fosters excellence, as any other academic unit might. Even though some of our students may not become ballet dancers, they still engage in intensive training with artists who are conducting rigorous research. I am deeply committed to making that part of their Duke Dance Program experience.
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