Who knew how imperative East Hampton’s venerable Guild Hall (1931) was to the history of the Black Hamptons and entertainment? Of course James Reese Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra, Williams and Walker, Tandy and Johnstone, all sorts of African American artists, orchestras, and entertainers have skillfully utilized outstanding talents to entertain whites for centuries, including in the exclusive Hamptons. Some like Harlem’s Joey Colman had even more esoteric gifts than others. Famously, to the delight of all onlookers, he sang, played piano, and took down his trousers, and extinguished a lighted candle.
In the September 23, 1963 Suffolk County edition of New York Newsday, reporting on a Black schoolteacher who was a member of the Guild Hall, a reporter noted, “The 1960 government census showed a year-round [white] population of 1,772 residents in the village of East Hampton. Only 14 of those residents were Negro…”
Famed Black artists who later appeared at Guild Hall include legend James Earl Jones, Broadway diva Audra McDonald, and the inimitable Billy Porter. Additionally, acclaimed playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith worked here performing her virtuoso one-woman shows.
As early as his company’s founding, in 1969, Alvin Ailey’s Dance Theatre of Harlem performed to benefit Guild Hall. So Friday, July 17’s sold-out production was nothing unusual. Indeed the evening was a celebration of sorts, of the company’s collaborative legacy performing in the Hamptons at Guild Hall.
Fittingly, Artistic Director Robert Garland engagingly introduced each piece with a monologue that told of its particular history and especially focused on any significance it might have to him directly.
Remarkably intimate, the program began and ended with two favorites from among the company’s acclaimed repertoire. Blake Works IV (The Barre Project) by internationally renowned choreographer William Forsythe came first. Featuring a propulsive, percussive techno musical score, intricately structured music by British singer-songwriter and composer James Blake, this work featured the utmost virtuosity and athleticism. Ironically, consisting exclusively of an endless repetition and mixing of the most stilted, conventional, elegant, and demanding poses imaginable, the work transformed the familiar into something electric.
Next, dancing an excerpt from a piece entitled “New Bach,” Micah Bullard executed lifts and supported pirouettes so effortlessly and with such elegance that he and his partner miraculously merged into a single being, one with four arms and four legs!
Commissioned from Artistic Director Robert Garland before he led the company, “Higher Ground,” he noted pridefully, has an unprecedented quantity of music licensed from Motown maestro Stevie Wonder. “It was obtained when his then young daughter attended the Dance Theatre school,” boasted Garland with nary a blush.
Interweaving the dance’s title track “Higher Ground” and selections from Wonder’s memorable 1970’s catalog, the deft dance combines vignettes of a turbulent moment. It’s done in a way that makes it now seem nostalgic and prescient at the same time. Yesterday’s rebelliousness, outrage, and resilience are all there, but along with today’s rage, refusal to turn back, and impatience that too little has changed.
Afterward, in the balmy garden, a polite reception was offered where one could actually meet the superhuman-looking dancers. As you might imagine, Harlem was well represented.
Do you imagine that that is it? Au Contraire! Starting Sunday, August 2, 2026, presented by the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts (CAAPA), “On Our Toes in The Hamptons: Building Our Heaven” is to stage a phenomenon which won’t soon be forgotten. It’s an interdisciplinary, in-depth examination of the spiritual and artistic evolution of Black music. Blending live music-making and spoken word, it’s a demonstration of how Black music is at the hub of our resolution, transcendence, and artistic excellence .
The performance features pianist and composer Damien Sneed with musicians from The Orchestra for Tomorrow, alongside soprano Angela Renée Simpson, bass Solomon Howard, poet Mahogany L. Browne, and Evidence Dance Company. In concert, along with members of the National Black Theater, these artists traverse our musical heritage, transcending conventional repertoires, soulful and resoundingly spiritual, in the concert hall as in the church choir stalls. An enriching, immersive, sensational experience is in store for a lucky audience eager to rejoice, honoring the legacy and ongoing evolution of Black artistry across time and space, but set in summertime’s earthly paradise, that is the Hamptons.
For more info on what’s forthcoming from Guild Hall, visit the Guild Hall | Museum, Performing Arts East Hampton, NY online at guildhall.org.
