Ms. Wideman-Davis, has been noted by New York Dance Fax as “distinctive for the power of her secure pointe work and her personality.”
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Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis began Wideman/Davis Dance in 2003. The company is a bi-located company with roots in New York , NY and Columbia, SC. Wideman/Davis Dance has a deep commitment to revealing social and political issues thru an African American perspective. The company makes work that is inspired by, and engaged with, current issues including: race, social class, gender and location. They consider education as an essential component to the development and sustainability of Wideman/Davis Dance. Embodying education as practice, the company connects with various communities of all ages through residencies and by increasing awareness of these social and political issues. Establishing educational residencies create environments of respect and cultivate the potential for empowerment and change. Wideman/Davis Dance works in collaboration with artists, scholars, and students alike, implicitly shifting the traditional company model and leveling hierarchical structures.
Tanya Wideman and Thaddeus Davis began this work as a way to consider the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, a dynamic cultural movement that shaped African American participation in world culture in the 1920s. Wideman and Davis conceived the work as an exploration of the concept of “double consciousness,” a philosophical idea proffered by leading African American intellectual W.E.B. Dubois. DuBois wondered at the necessity of African Americans to live behind the “veil” of racial separation, to strive forth as both black and American, with those often contradictory political identities.
