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Sticking to It:
Talking X's and O's with Tar's dancer-choreographer Charles
O. Anderson/by
Janet Anderson
Philadelphia City
Paper, August 29, 2007
(Cover Story)
Call it charisma, or
charm, or simply stage presence. Whatever it is, Charles O. Anderson
wears it like an aura at every single dance performance.
He seems huge, with
his bare, muscled chest, shaved head and, usually, an African
wrapped skirt at his waist. When his bare feet are slapping the
floor and his arms are swiveling like a windmill, it doesn't matter
if he's surrounded by his Dance Theatre X troupe, because he's The
Man. If he seems physically huge, so do the topics he chooses to
explore through movement: race, gender, sexuality and politics,
sprinkled with literary references from authors like James Baldwin
and Richard Wright. He is electric.
So, who is this
pleasant, neatly dressed guy, rising elegantly to greet me at Café
Ole? Surely the gentleman with dark hair, professorial glasses and
soft voice can't be the high-voltage choreographer-dancer? Anderson
laughs, "I actually am a very reserved person, but onstage all bets
are off for me and I am highly theatrical." Lois Lane, meet Clark
Kent.
This is Professor
Charles O. Anderson. By day, he's an assistant prof and head of
African-American Studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
Teaching dance is also part of his curriculum. "I love teaching," he
says. "It is a real opportunity to find and teach those who are
completely new to dance, very often white and always new to my
technique."
Anderson himself was
late to the dance world, having started out studying mechanical
engineering at Cornell University. But one night he went to a party
where there was dancing
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