LaTasha Barnes

LaTasha Barnes in 2024

LaTasha Barnes is an American dancer, educator, and choreographer. She is the creator and director of The Jazz Continuum, an African roots-based performance encompassing Lindy Hop, house dance, locking, breaking, voguing, and jazz dance that connects dance of the swing era to dance today. The show debuted at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2021, and continues to tour in the U.S.

Early years

LaTasha Barnes was born in Richmond, Virginia, where she was exposed to music at an early age, having a DJ father. During elementary school Barnes took dance classes, and traded moves with her cousins and friends from New York and Washington DC. Due to her father's role as an Active Guard Reserve, Barnes also became involved in the junior Marine Corps and Junior ROTC. After graduating from high school, she enlisted in the Army in 1998 and became a sergeant first class satellite communications operator After serving 5 years in the army, she was assigned to the White House Communications Agency in Washington, D.C. In 2004 Barnes was hit by a car, injuring her lower back, hip, and breaking her wrist. While coming back from these injuries, Barnes took a popping class and regained mobility. Her popping teacher introduced her to Junious Brickhouse, founder of Urban Artistry company in Washington, DC. Barnes began studying house dance and in time joined the leadership team. In 2011, Barnes and her dance partner Toyin Sogunro placed first in a dance battle at Juste Debout in Paris.

Performing career

In the 2010s, Barnes became more interested in jazz dance and its African American origins, and particularly Lindy Hop, realizing it was closely related to the house styles she had been doing. She attended the International Lindy Hop Championships and other Lindy Hop competitions, where she won awards for her dancing. At times, she mingled her house and jazz styles. In 2016, she won a solo dance jazz competition at the Herräng Dance Camp in Sweden, and won first place in the Advanced Jack & Jill Lindy Hop Championships with her partner Jason Hizon. In 2017, she won second place in the Lindyfest All-Star Jack and Jill Lindy Hop Championships with partner Blake Thiessen. In 2019, she won the Luck of the Draw contest with partner Nick Williams at the International Lindy Hop Championships. Barnes continued placing in dance competitions and performing internationally.

During this time period, Barnes began a collaboration with Caleb Teicher & Friends, which eventually resulted in the 2021 show "Swing Out," currently touring the U.S. This show, rooted in African American dance from the late 1800s and early 1900s, is a mix of tap and vernacular jazz (e.g. the cakewalk, the Charleston, the Black Bottom and the Lindy Hop). Company members dance to a live, onstage band playing tunes from the swing era. The show, produced by the Joyce Theater in New York, was created by Teicher along with a small group of collaborators including Barnes.

Cultural Ambassador and Educator

While Barnes continues to perform with many different people in a variety of venues, she is also an educator who explains the key role of African Americans in developing African diasporic dance forms including hip hop, swing dance, and jazz dance. Barnes has taken on some of the responsibility for keeping the history of vernacular Black dance forms alive, making her an "ambassador," or spokesperson for her culture. Barnes is a member of a few organizations that raise the visibility of Black dancers while also offering educational and financial resources. These groups are the Frankie Manning Foundation, HellaBlackLindyHop, and the Black Lindy Hoppers Fund. In 2016, Barnes was the Frankie Manning Foundation Scholar to Herräng Dance Camp, Herräng, Sweden. The Herrang Dance Camp is one of the most popular places in Europe to learn swing dance and Lindy Hop, originated in 1982 by the Swedish Swing Society. The group began inviting prestigious swing-era African American dancers, including Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, to teach and perform; the camp has grown in size and scope since then. Barnes herself became part of Herrang's faculty in 2018.

Barnes was also a teacher and performer at the Mother City Hop Jazz Festival in Cape Town, South Africa in 2019.In addition to her work abroad, she has served as a panelist and teacher at cultural institutions and universities. For instance in 2018, she served as a panelist on the history of Lindy Hop at the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts.In 2023, she lectured on Hip-Hop dance at Arizona State University. In 2024, she did a five-day residency at Boston University where she taught classes and choreography to the BU community, culminating in an informal performance.

As she became more involved in authentic jazz dance, and Lindy Hop in particular, Barnes began a self-designed master's program in Ethnochoreology, Black Studies, and Performance Studies| at New York University's Gallatin School. Barnes interviewed Black dancers for her thesis, which explores the connections among jazz, funk, hip-hop, and house dance, and investigates why many Black dancers were not aware of these connections. Her thesis and research make connections among dancers, performers, historical dances, and academic research. Building on her embodied experience as a dancer and her life-long knowledge of Black dance forms, Barnes published a chapter in the book Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the 21st Century. Her contribution, entitled "Must Be the Music," discusses her family dance and music background, her choreographic process, and her aesthetic philosophy as both a creator and performer.

In 2021, Barnes was hired as an Assistant Professor, then promoted to Associate Professor of Dance at the Arizona State University School of Music, Dance, and Theater. She teaches several courses including all levels of Hip Hop; House dance; Authentic Jazz Dance; Dance in U.S. Popular Culture; Creative Practice, and others. In addition, she co-directs the yearly Sol Power Street Dance Festival in Tempe, Arizona.

The Jazz Continuum

All of her experiences as a performer as well as her academic work for her thesis have served as important precursors to her current show, The Jazz Continuum, an "ongoing project to close the gap between contemporary Black dances and their predecessors." Barnes' performance is backed by her scholarly research into a variety of African diasporic forms, and also includes improvisation; Barnes calls it "an offering back to all those people that made us who we are." She also notes that it is not a traditional show with a sharp separation between the audience and the performers; the show is meant to represent dancing from social spaces including clubs, ballrooms, and parties, and embodies a true improvisational spirit.

Critic Janine Parker writes about a 2021 performance of The Jazz Continuum at Jacob's Pillow, a dance venue in Western Massachusetts that produces a 10-week schedule of international companies each summer, calling it "generous" and "joyful," among other things. Parker notes that the show is "expertly choreographed," but that it also has an improvisational feel at times. The six dancers often form a circle, making a space for individuals to come to the center for short solos; other spatial formations including lines and small groupings are also on view. Different styles of dance are incorporated including Lindy Hop, soft shoe, and hip hop. The show includes choreography by Barnes, Mickey Davidson, Bobby White, and Chester Whitmore, as well as recreations of some historical jazz and Lindy Hop choreography. A live band of four musicians interacts with the dancers, who also interact with the audience and each other with lively faces and laughter.

In 2022, New York Times critic Siobhan Burke's review of "The Jazz Continuum" gives viewing instructions for the show: "At the outset, [Melanie] George (the work's dramaturge and MC), advised us to watch 'The Jazz Continuum' not as a performance for an audience but as an invitation into a social dance and music space." The idea behind the title of the show is that "dance ancestors" such as Norma Miller, Frankie Manning and others were the originators of these Black dance forms; the performance highlights some of these historic dances while also adding related contemporary jazz material, thus creating a "jazz continuum" from past to present. A live band directed by Charles Turner accompanies the dancing. Burke notes the interactions among the dancers, and how the movement passes from one to another "like an electrical pulse." Her review emphasizes that the dancers create a communal energy that gives every individual a chance to shine. But it also draws attention to Barnes herself as a dancer: "...her brilliance must be noted, especially as it manifests in one improvised duet with Turner, inspired by a Norma Miller routine...Barnes becomes a flickering image of her many influences as she channels those before her into something singular, very much her own." The show became a New York Times critics' pick for 2022.

The show continues to garner positive reviews, including writeups by Boston critic Jeffrey Gantz ("LaTasha Barnes's 'The Jazz Continuum' can't stop moving) and Olivia Murray on a performance in Washington, D.C. (LaTasha Barnes' 'The Jazz Continuum at Kennedy Center').

Awards and Achievements

Barnes has received two Bessie Awards, one in 2021 and the second in 2023. The Bessies were established in 1984 in New York City to honor original creative work and performance. Barnes' first Bessie was for outstanding performance and "sustained achievement in dance." In 2023, she received the Bessie Outstanding Creator/Choreographer Award for her show The Jazz Continuum. She was also selected by the New York Times in 2021 as a "breakout star." She has collaborated with Caleb Teicher on his show Swing Out, which has appeared across the U.S. including at the Lincoln Center in New York.

In 2022, Barnes was featured on the Today Show, hosted by Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager, in an interview that discusses Barnes' dance background and the history of the Lindy Hop. Also in 2022, Barnes was featured on the cover of Dance Magazine in a story about her life and work. A third honor in 2022 was the Social Dance Innovator Award from Dancing Classrooms' Mad Hot Ball. This award is given to someone "who is forging connections between styles and cultures and bringing more attention to the field."

Barnes is also vice president of marketing and outreach for the International Lindy Hop Championships, where she is one of the organizers. Barnes currently teaches at Arizona State University in the department of film, dance, and theater.

External links

• Official website