Angels of the Dance: Talented Big Island Youth Aspire to New Heights Under the Tutelage of Angel Prince
By Kim Cope Tait
A young woman emerges from darkness, taking tentative steps along the railing of a balcony; sunset sky sends a pale strip of fiery light along the horizon, apparently far below her precarious heights.
“I never loved nobody fully,” come the singsong words of the Regina Spektor ditty that seems to emanate from the shrubbery surrounding the outdoor stage. The girl is Elizabeth McDonald, and some in the audience recognize her character’s child-like expression from years ago, when she was a little girl with dancing shoes.
Tonight she dons a bright, curly red wig punctuated with tiny yellow feathers, which expands her silhouette exponentially. It is part of her zany costuming for a glimpse into the choreography of Angel Prince and a preview of the first performance of the newly formed PrinceDance Nonprofit Contemporary Dance Company.
Lizzie, as we used to call her, has blossomed into this rainbow-colored version of herself, and the audience croons in delight as she pulls a compact mirror from the mass of curls on her head, then a tiny book, a cassette tape which she promptly unwinds, and a host of other previously invisible objects, the weight of which, earlier in her dance, threatened to topple the wide-eyed girl beneath their multi-colored nest. The number is about the precariousness of being human, the longing to be good—to be real. How we discover balance, almost as if by accident. Find a way to forgive ourselves our imperfections—love them into the layers of our beauty.
When the dance ends, the audience for this special fundraiser event applauds and listens attentively, as Elizabeth breathlessly describes what it means to her to have the opportunity to get paid for doing what she loves—here in her island home. Having danced for Angel Prince since she was 14, a girl who balanced her stageworthy endeavors with the act of communion with her Honoka’a home and surfing in Waipi’o Valley, Elizabeth is completely comfortable on the Kahilu Theatre stage, where Angel has served as the resident choreographer since 2007.
Teacher, dancer and choreographer Angel Prince brought this opportunity for Hawai‘i youth to the Big Island after a decade of working on the concrete island of Manhattan. She moved to Honoka’a in 2003 in search of the kind of grounding, creative force that underlies the Hawai’i Island experience and is consummate in its patron goddess Pele.
It is Pele’s transformative energy that Angel honors and perpetuates with her innovations in dance; that energy pervades this ever-growing isle, infusing its many landscapes with the promise of growth and expansion, while honoring what is sacred and ancient in the Hawaiian tradition.
In 2005 Angel began the PrinceDance Institute, which was and continues to be a for-profit institute that offers classes to all ages in contemporary, ballet and partner dance and results in regular shows for the community and beyond. Angel’s intention for the institute is to fuse what is most vibrant and inspiring in contemporary dance with the sense of honoring the land we inhabit.
Each of the institute shows has centered on environmental awareness, and from hailing sustainability to cautioning against global warming, the message of nurturing and protecting the ‘aina is central to Angel’s vibrant and theatrical productions.
Elizabeth and her cohort Lia Cain have clocked countless hours on the black stage of the Kahilu, moving and dancing, laughing and creating under Angel’s tutelage. Having started in Angel’s institute, they are now the principal dancers in the new, nonprofit PrinceDance Company. Like Elizabeth, Lia is a Honoka’a girl, and the contrast between her short-board-riding persona and the one that graces the watery ‘stage’ at the PrinceDance fundraiser at a private residence in Waimea is delicious.
In between dinner and the toast is a Tango interlude involving Angel herself and Hugo Patyn, a professional dancer she has brought in from Buenos Aires, especially for the PrinceDance premier. The two are intensely synchronized, locked at the eye, the foot, the hip. The audience considers looking away from what must certainly be a private intimacy, but is drawn in again by the irresistible beauty of their figures moving across the floor. They are reassured at intervals by Angel’s candid and seductive little looks in their direction, daring them to hold their ground; Hugo’s eyes, in comparison, never leave the fluid body of his partner. Angel’s stiletto heels find their way around and between Hugo’s black dancing shoes, and the two dancers ignite the room, bloom into the unmistakable flame of tango, and remind us again of the thrilling danger and the fabulous appeal of moving in unison with another human being.
Angel’s experience of Argentina and of the tango infuses her artistic work; her travels to Buenos Aires in particular have inspirited her choreography and musical selections with the vast transformational energy of what many consider to be a cultural revolution. “There is a cultural history there that hadn’t really evolved for 100 years. The youth of Argentina have rediscovered it and are building on that history with a fresh, young eye,” says Angel.
From the use of music by a young Argentine orchestra called El Afronte to bringing in Patyn himself to participate in the PrinceDance premier of Que Sueñes Con Las Angelitas, Angel is effectively integrating the vitality of the young Argentine artists she has encountered with the inherent creative energies of Hawai‘i.
Journeying back to us here on the Big Island, Angel honors the history and traditions of Hawai‘i, sharing a vitality and beauty that is, not unlike Pele, constantly re-inventing, re-shaping and expanding itself. In this way, Angel, as part of a fluid artistic movement, is ever redefining what is art, dance and theatrical expression. Her innovations in contemporary dance are a direct product of that movement and the melding of cultural experiences from around the world.
For the final number of the PrinceDance fundraiser, the dancers are three: Elizabeth, Lia and Megan MacArthur. The stage itself? An infinity swimming pool, which accommodates the dancers with its 48 square foot section of calf-deep water. The entire phenomenon of this performance is of course the result of Angel’s dynamic and visionary creativity. She has effectively incorporated the Kanehoa landscape as far as the opposite shore of the stream, where a single body moves in the jagged circle of a spotlight projected onto rock. The result is mind-bending:
Here is darkness and light. Distance and proximity. Stone and sky. This canopy of connection—inky membrane between us. Within and beyond: the frenetic movement of what we desire, what we resist, what we create every minute. With our intention we expand into that space, push at the membrane as if against gossamers, find one another with our flesh. With our fear, we recede, pull into the heart of our individual space—allow the night to drop down on our heads, fill the space that threatens to close, seal us to each other.
What strikes me, as the dances end and the donations to support this growing, alive, artistic endeavor here on our own beautiful island begin to come in, is what it means to be able to stay. So often our youth feel forced to leave the islands in order to spread their prodigious wings. They find, as they grow and discover their own talents, that their Big Island home can be limiting. For what it is, they love it. Their family is here. In this place they have grown to love the connection to earth and element—the very connection, in fact, that first drew Angel to live and work here. In this place they have learned to be rooted but also to aspire to great heights, to limn the ethereal with their own burgeoning spirits, while their toes draw spirals in the black sand.
And then there is the decision. To stay and give up the dream of being a professional contemporary dancer, actor, singer…or to go. Go in pursuit of the thing that lights them up. The thing that expands them into their best possible selves. In their hearts: the hope of one day returning…and a deep sadness for what must be abandoned in the interim.
Elizabeth is in earnest when she says that Angel’s creation of the PrinceDance Company has changed her life. That without the rooting of Angel’s artistic purpose here in North Hawai‘i, her dream would have, of necessity, sent her away from the home she loves. She and Lia glow with the excitement of yet another night on stage, in the spotlight, where they will bask in the approbation of another enthusiastic audience…and then go home to their Honoka’a beds, wake to the sounds of the myna birds outside their windows, grab a hot malasada (shhhh, don’t tell Angel!) and head on down to the shoreline with their surfboards.
To see Angel’s class schedule and get more information on upcoming Institute shows and events, you may want to visit the website at www.princedanceinstitute.com. To see more about what is happening with the new, nonprofit PrinceDance Company, visit www.princedance.org. ❖
Email Kim Cope Tait at kimcopetait@hotmail.com.
