The Dance of Black resilience: former HISD teacher offers creative space for untold stories

Stacey Allen doesn’t need a formal classroom to teach a lesson on Black history.

After 11 years as a dance teacher across the region, three of those at Houston Independent School District schools, Allen traded pedagogy for a different classroom: the community.

“I’m always an educator,” said Allen, who has also danced across the region, including a few years with Harrison Guy’s Urban Souls Dance Company .

Lately, though, dancing has taken a back seat to her main role as founder and artistic director of Nia’s Daughter’s Movement Collective. In 2018, she created the multigenerational, multidisciplinary Black female dance group to support art and wellness initiatives, and tell stories through the lens of Black women and girls.

Allen started it after giving birth to her second child so she could stay connected to dance, but have a better work-life balance. She would bring her kids to dance rehearsals and multitask, often teaching while a baby nursed from her bosom. Allen soon realized that there was a greater opportunity to create experiences and expose Black families to the fine arts. By eliminating barriers to the arts, she’s become a trusted local storyteller, educating audiences on untold stories about Black resilience and Black joy at a time when some want to hide those stories.

“That’s why a lot of our performances are in nontraditional spaces,” Allen said. “I’m not saying we don’t dance in theaters because we do sometimes, but we’re more likely to dance at a park.”

By doing so, families can connect dance with nature, and children are free to roam without disturbing a theater audience. Their last park performance at Discovery Green, titled “ Nature Around Us ,” taught a lesson about the importance of combating environmental challenges.

Nia’s Daughter’s latest performance of “Angelitos Negros” told the little-known history and experiences of enslaved people in Texas who traveled the Underground Railroad south to Mexico instead of Canada for freedom. The performance, held at Moody Center for the Arts, concluded Rice University’s second annual Black Houston Symposium, a two-day conference that showcases how Black people have fundamentally shaped Houston’s social and cultural landscapes.

The historical piece was originally choreographed by Lori Bujung, the founder of Second Generation Dance Company , after she toured Mexico in 2005 and left “flabbergasted” by what she saw: Black people in need.

“I was able to do some research and found out about the presence of African Americans in Mexico and the promise of freedom, of running away from everything that people had to deal with here, only to realize that there was a caste system there as well,” Bujung said after a post-performance talk.

“And there was absolutely no recognition of African Americans being in existence there. So just imagine that you’re running for your life … only to become invisible.”

Emotion over technique

Every facial expression and every movement from the dancers, who were dressed in all white, exuded that fear and trauma.

During one scene in “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” by Mahalia Jackson, a dancer depicts a slave sleeping peacefully on the floor only to be awakened with anxiety when someone nears her. Another scene portrays slaves rowing a boat quickly as if someone were chasing them.

“There was absolutely no question as to what’s going on, on that stage,” said Lindi Yeni, the founder of the Kuumba House Dance Theatre.

Bujung volunteered and worked as a children’s dance teacher for roughly 19 years at the Kuumba House. Founded in 1982 until Yeni retired in 2008, the Kuumba House was a multicultural center that provided artists of color an outlet to showcase and perfect their talent.

“This is why we brought this young lady here,” Yeni said, referring to  a 10-year old dance student in attendance with her. “We brought her so she can see where she is going.”

Bujung said she used to demand technical precision in dance, but over time, realized it wasn’t the most important thing.

“The most profound impact on people is not the technique, but the emotions and the relation, and what you’re passing on to other people through your skin, through your heart, through your hand, through your movement — very simple but direct intention and gestures,” she said.

Yeni is familiar with the level of technicality that Bujung’s dancers brought to their performances, but she was blown away by their talent.

“There was nothing taken away from her (Bujung’s) quality of work,” she said. “Technique is one thing, but to understand the spirit of what you’re doing is amazing.”

Portia Hopkins, a historian at Rice University, said they were immediately drawn to Allen’s work after learning of it at their inaugural Black Houston Symposium.

“We are interested in collecting and telling the stories of Black dancers and choreographers in Houston because they are such an integral part of the Black Houstonian experience,” Hopkins said. “Stacey Allen is a force and she stands on the shoulders of some unbelievable ‘dancestors.’ We are lucky she calls Houston home.”

The importance of recording history

Allen considers Bujung among one of Houston’s “dancestors,” or trailblazers in the Black dance scene. She pushed to restage the piece for the symposium so that it could be properly archived at Rice’s Fondren Library and retold for years to come.

“I wanted the next generation of dancers to know what came before them,” Allen said.

She recalls coming across the work in her studies at Sam Houston State University, a predominantly white institution where she craved Black creative content. But when she returned to Houston as a professional dancer and educator, she was somewhat surprised when she couldn’t find it.

Bujung said “Angelitos Negros” was once archived, but it was unfortunately destroyed. She’s excited that through Allen, her work has been reborn.

“I just have gratitude,” said Bujung following the performance. “If Stacey had not been the woman that she is, and even thought that there was value in what I did, then it would have just been gone.”

The restaging of this piece was commissioned by “Let Creativity Happen,” a competitive grant program that is administered by the Houston Arts Alliance and funded by a portion of the city of Houston’s hotel occupancy tax. The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs awarded $42,500 in grants toward 17 artists and nonprofit organizations, including Allen and Nia’s Daughter’s Movement Collective, to present their work in the digital realm through streaming services, virtual reality, and digital curation.

“The creatives we are funding showcase the diversity of our cherished city, and the added digital outreach of their works ensures accessibility for everyone – not just in Houston but across the world,” said former Mayor Sylvester Turner in a 2022 release .

Allen hopes that this will become the genesis of a larger archival project of Black creative work throughout the region.

“It’s essential to properly archive the work of Black artists,” she said. “That’s something that is very important because although a lot of our history is given out orally, we want to make sure we don’t lose the access to the brilliance of the Black artist.”