Dominic Moore-Dunson’s Black by Nature will bring audiences onto two Cascade Valley Metro Park trails this month. DANCECleveland lists performances at 1 and 4 p.m. Sept. 19 along the Oxbow Trail and at the same times Sept. 26 along the Prather Trail. The performances are sold out, according to cleveland.com.
Black by Nature is structured as a moving outdoor performance, with audiences encountering dance, spoken storytelling and live music as they travel through the park. An acoustic ensemble provides a jazz-influenced score. DANCECleveland describes the work as an exploration of healing, belonging and the relationship between Black identity and the natural world, making the landscape part of the performance. Details about the production and its artists appear on DANCECleveland’s event page.
The trails add local context
The routes also connect the performances to Cascade Valley’s local history and terrain. Summit Metro Parks says the Prather Trail crosses the site of a distinctive integrated Akron neighborhood that existed in the 1940s; a musical-note symbol on the trail marker recognizes the Prather family’s musical heritage and the community’s spirit. The Oxbow Trail is a moderate route with Cuyahoga River views, hilly terrain and a steep uphill section, according to Summit Metro Parks.
The park’s Valley View section adds an environmental dimension to the setting. Acquired in 2016, the former golf course is being restored as natural habitat. Summit Metro Parks says the work helped increase the area’s plant and wildlife count from about 100 species to nearly 1,000 and connect Cascade Valley with the Gorge and Sand Run Metro Parks across 1,800 acres of continuous green space.
A landscape reshaped by history and restoration
The Prather Trail’s history reflects an earlier effort to create an integrated neighborhood. The University of Akron reports that 1946 advertisements for Wheelock Cuyahoga Acres, on land that became the Honeywell Drive neighborhood near the park, offered two- to four-acre lots to buyers identified as “White or Colored,” before fair housing laws existed. Ideastream Public Media reports that George Conrad and Willie Mae Prather moved from Alabama to Akron and began building a home on Honeywell Drive in the 1950s; Conrad was a local church organist. Valley View’s transformation also involved public conservation investment. According to Summit Metro Parks, more than $1 million from the Clean Ohio Conservation Fund supported the removal of non-native turf and trees and the restoration of streams and wetlands. In fall 2017, park staff and more than 500 volunteers planted 120,000 ecologically appropriate trees. A separate $3 million grant-funded project restored nearly a mile of the Cuyahoga River through floodplain excavation, habitat improvements and expanded access for canoeing, kayaking and shore fishing.
A work developed through research and partnership
Moore-Dunson’s official materials describe Black by Nature as a work about the intersection of Black culture, nature and the history connecting them. The choreographer identifies his broader approach as “Urban Midwest Storytelling,” a method he uses to address race, identity, memory and belonging through movement and text, according to his official site.
The National Center for Choreography-Akron supported the project through creative research residencies. Signal Akron reports that the center, founded at The University of Akron in 2015, is one of only two national choreography centers in the United States; the other is at Florida State University. DANCECleveland is presenting the work during its 70th anniversary season, and the commission is the organization’s first new dance commission from a Northeast Ohio-based artist, according to Signal Akron and DANCECleveland.
Moore-Dunson received the 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize Emerging Artist Award and was named to Dance Magazine’s 2023 “25 to Watch” list. His previous work includes inCOPnegro: Aftermath, which examined community healing after the police killing of Jayland Walker in Akron, according to BroadwayWorld.
