Review: Dominic Moore-Dunson’s "BLACK BY NATURE" Debuts in Akron Park

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A Soul-Stirring Hike Through Dominic Moore-Dunson's Complex Relationship With Nature

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In an unusual opening to DanceCleveland’s 70th Anniversary Season, the organization took to the outdoors at Akron’s Cascade Valley Metro Park over the past two weekends for the world premiere of dancer-choreographer Dominic Moore-Dunson’s site-specific dance-theater piece, Black by Nature .

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Traveling similar philosophical ground as Carolyn Finney’s book “Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors” (2014) and Erin Sharkey’s collection “A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars” (2023), Black by Nature reflected on the significance and role of nature in Moore-Dunson’s life and the lives of Black people in the United States.

“A hike where those on it will come across art moments,” is how Akron native Moore-Dunson described the hourlong performance hike this past Saturday along Cascade Valley Metro Park’s milelong Prather Trail. The work unfolded in nine art moments inspired by Moore-Dunson’s journal writings about being in nature, progressing from lighthearted to serious in subject matter.

During the performance hike, audience members walked along and interacted with the work’s four dancers and trio of musicians in the lead-up to its art moments.

The first of those art moments, “We Ready,” was an improvised comedic solo by dancer Larry White Jr., with the musicians, as he fumbled through trying on clothing for a hike. It was followed by 5-10 minutes of hiking to the next stop along the trail. On a park bench, Moore-Dunson read “The Water and Me,” the first of several spoken essays from his journal, describing his relationship with water as cleanser, nourisher, and healer. Said Moore-Dunson, “I remember you. You held me before the light ever touched my skin…Before I knew what it meant to be here…In the tears I didn’t want anybody to see…You were there.”

The rest of Black by Nature continued in a similar pattern, with short hikes between moments of art.

“Alone in the Woods,” another comedic vignette, came next. Danced by White Jr. and Moore-Dunson, it reflected on an encounter Moore-Dunson had with a fellow Black hiker, in which the pair shared a moment of caution as they heard strange noises coming from the woods. Back-to-back, the two dancers swayed back and forth to original music composed by saxophonist Chris Coles and played by him, Noa Denton (bass), and Sarah Hegenderfer (trumpet). The pair, looking like frightened characters in a “Scooby-Doo” cartoon episode, then darted, circled, and partnered each other in physical choreography that had them rolling to the ground and back up again, eliciting chuckles as they played off their fears to the delight of those watching.

Moore-Dunson’s movement language and choreography for Black by Nature were more illustrative than technically complex, suiting the work’s themes and makeshift stage areas along the hiking trail.

“Hide N Go Seek” followed. In it, Moore-Dunson smartly related the popular children’s game he plays with his young daughter to the plight of his people’s ancestors running and hiding from those who would enslave them or worse. White Jr., along with dancers Natalie Brown and Jade Holloway, were the hiders, running frantically about like children and hiding behind trees too thin to obscure them from view, as seeker Moore-Dunson, in another spoken essay, counted to ten.

Said Moore-Dunson: “If you’re the counter…the one who closes their eyes and pretends they cannot hear the tiny feet scurrying away from them…They count because everyone deserves a chance to hide. One thousand one! And if you are the hider, you become very good at disappearing. You learn quickly that not every hiding place is a good hiding place.”

As Moore-Dunson continued to count, his voice grew louder and more ominous, and the dancers’ attempts to hide grew more urgent and desperate.

For the remainder of Black by Nature , the sun shining tranquil hike in the woods was offset by provocative art moments, none more salient than “Dear Miss 33,” a spoken essay by Moore-Dunson about his encounter walking behind a white woman on a hike as she nervously kept looking back at him and their mutual fears of one another. She, a woman on her own in the woods, afraid of being attacked by a Black man, and he, afraid of any accusations a white woman might level at him for being in the woods with her. The essay told of the increasing distance Moore-Dunson felt he needed to keep from her: 33 steps, 33 yards, or 33 minutes for both to feel safe.

After “Mud Skin,” another dance vignette performed by Brown and Holloway, inspired by Moore-Dunson’s description of the soil’s color to his skin and his contemplation of whether God thought of him when he made the land, Black by Nature concluded with “The River.” Danced by Moore-Dunson, costumed in all white, wading in the Cuyahoga River that runs through the park, the poignant solo to Cole’s lonesome saxophone playing echoed a West African naming ceremony Cole had experienced in tribute to the countless lives lost at the region’s largest slave market, the atrocities that took place there.

In it, Moore-Dunson moved with a quiet anguish, twisting and turning his body, cupping river water onto himself. It ended with him lying back into the river, floating like Shakespeare’s Ofelia giving in to the inevitability of death.

Measured in its thought-provoking approach, Black by Nature was more than a hike where art happened; it shone a spotlight on some of the cruelties of humanity that dwell in the bones of Moore-Dunson and his people, triggered by being Black out in nature.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/cleveland/article/Review-BLACK-BY-NATURE-at-Cascade-Valley-Metro-Park-20261001)._