Winter Dances 2024

The Dance program’s Winter Dances performance this January includes an original work by Seattle artist Nia-Amina Minor about the life and work of Syvilla Fort, the first Black dancer at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Fort may also be the inspiration behind the Space Needle.

Syvilla Fort is known for breaking barriers of race during the 1940s. After leaving Seattle, she moved to New York City where she worked with luminaries such as the famed choreographer and composer duo Merce Cunningham and John Cage. She also taught dance to celebrities like Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte.

As a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Fort influenced generations of dancers in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation. She also may have inspired Space Needle architect Victor Steinbrueck. Steinbrueck based the Needle’s sweeping, delicate structure on David Lemon’s wooden sculpture, “The Feminine One,” which captured a feminine body in motion. Fort happened to be one of the most prominent dancers in Seattle when Lemon sculpted the piece. She was part of a tight-knit community of artists and was known to pose for visual artists. Steinbrueck had also been in a romantic relationship with Fort before he married.

“If we look at the Space Needle as an icon of the region,” says B.J. Bullert, director of the documentary Space Needle: A Hidden History, who proposed the theory of Fort as the tower’s inspiration, “what would it mean to imagine her as perhaps capturing the spirit of Syvilla Fort?”

WWU Dance will present Nia-Amina Minor’s work in January 25 through 27 on the Mainstage at the Performing Arts Center. Eight dance majors have been working closely with Nia-Amina Minor learning her movement vocabulary, and the history behind the work.

"We are honored to showcase the legacy of Syvilla Fort and the Black dance pioneers of Seattle with this performance. This residency was a powerful experience for our Dance majors, helping them see the intersections of history, the arts, and community through the expert guidance of Nia-Amina Minor." Susan Haines, Director of Dance.

Winter Dances is an annual concert of original student choreography featuring guest artists. The performances are part of the Bachelor’s of Fine Art (“BFA”) dance program. Students in the Dance major study the creation of time-based art for the proscenium stage - as choreographers, dancers, and lighting designers. The students also fill roles behind-the-scenes as stage managers, costume and lighting designers and master electricians.

Photo credit: Clinton James Photography