Sheron Wray

S. Ama Wray (born 1970), known formally as Sheron Wray, is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and theatre director. She studied under Jane Dudley[1] at the London Contemporary Dance School, later performing with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and the Rambert Dance Company, and forming her own company JazzXchange in 1992. She presently is associate professor of dance at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine.

S. Ama Wray
photo by Aliza Rand
Born
Sheron Wray

1970 (age 50–51)
England
Current groupJazzXchange
Former groupsLondon Contemporary Dance Theatre Rambert Dance Company
DancesContemporary

As a performer, she is best known for her Jane Dudley's Harmonica Breakdown[2] and in her own Texterritory, a piece integrating live text message participation from the audience. Texterritory has been performed in Trafalgar Square as part of London's 2012 Olympic Bid, the Soho Theatre, New York University and other international venues.

She was awarded a NESTA fellowship in 2003.

Background

Wray's foundation and background is modern dance and is grounded by her training at the London Contemporary Dance School in Graham technique. Other strong influences are Matt Mattox's approach to jazz, West African dance, and Afro-Cuban dance. She danced with London Contemporary Dance Theatre Rambert Dance Company. Repertoire included works by Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Anthoy Tudor, Paul Taylor, Ohad Naharin, Dan Wagoner and Jane Dudley. Wray is widely known for her role as the leading performer and legal custodian of Harmonica Breakdown (1938), choreographed by Jane Dudley. As custodian she continues to restage the work globally.

In the UK as the artistic director of JazzXchange Music and Dance Company she created over 30 works including collaborations with Wynton Marsalis, Derek Bermel, Gary Crosby and Julian Joseph. For the UK's 2012 Cultural Olympiad Festival she was commissioned to choreograph The Brown Bomber, collaborating with composer Julian Joseph, performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Improvisation is central to the approach to creating in collaboration with jazz music and this is extended into the realm of technology. As the recipient of the coveted three-year NESTA Fellowship (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) a synthesis of modern dance, jazz improvisation and West African performance aesthetics was conceptualised in the award-winning Texterritory; an interactive performance platform created in collaboration with Fleeta Siegel. The format fractures the fourth wall and allows audience-agency to co-create the performance through their cell phones. It plays with time and proximity as it extends to enables post event engagement. Recent productions (2011) include Texterritory Congo, Digitally Ever Present and Texterritory USA (2008) with NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing.

Wray's engagement with Africa and the African Diaspora began in 2004 with study and research into African and Afro-Cuban dance exclusively taking place on the continent of Africa and the Caribbean. Ghana, Guinea, Senegambia Zimbabwe, Uganda and Cuba have been places of exchange. Her contemporary African works have been seen on the Ghana Dance Ensemble, Discreet Discoveries – an experimental work engaging, dance, music, text and audience interaction and Rhythm in Time with Danza Libre in Cuba for whom she has been a long time visiting choreographer. Additionally, she has directed African-centred physical theatre plays by activist playwright/performer Mojisola Adebayo. These plays include "Muhammad Ali and Me", a semi autobiographical one woman performance (although incorporated supporting actors) that combines poetry, dance, a cappella singing, boxing and audience interaction that experimentally (and inclusively) incorporates integrated British Sign Language,[3] that detailed the struggles associated with growing up black in a majority white area (Essex, Colchester).[4] Wray also directed Mojisola Adebayo's "Moj of the Antarctic" A play that pays homage to the life of Ellen Craft as well as the artworks by queer photographer Del LaGrace Volcano.[5] Muhammad Ali and Me and Moj of the Antarctic toured both the UK and Southern Africa, 2008–2010. For a non-traditional audience she performed an improvised solo Bodily Steps to Innovation for Tedx in Southern California. It poses cognitive dissonance as a way for the audience to access their creativity.

She is an Assistant Professor of Dance – University of California, Irvine and UCI she directs The Ghana Project: an interdisciplinary research project including five different UCI schools (Humanities, Social Science, Education, Arts and Computer Science) and the University of Ghana, Legon. She received her master's degree from Middlesex University in the UK and currently she is undertaking her Doctoral studies at the University of Surrey, funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. In February 2013 she presented her theory of Multi-logics in West Africa's Performance at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Teaching

Alongside choreographing Wray has taught dance at professional company, conservatory and community youth levels for over twenty-five years. Due to her background and artistic interest she is equally adept at teaching modern (Graham-based) Jazz (Matt Mattox based) and Improvisation (Embodiology – her own improvisation-as-performance method). In January 2014 she taught Embodiology – her improvisation-as-performance method, at the Martha Graham School in New York. She has held had teaching positions with the Royal Ballet School and English National Ballet school, (upper school – modern dance faculty) London Contemporary Dance School (modern), The Place (Professional class series). She has also undertaken teaching residencies with Carnegie Mellon University, University of Surrey, Middlesex University, Rick Odums Centre de Jazz Danse – Paris, James Carles – Toulouse, Centre National de Danse – Paris, DV8 Physical Theatre, Independent Dance (ID) and Mathew Bourne's New Adventures in London. She has also taught company classes for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre – during their UK tour and workshops for the extension program in New York.

Professional membership

Since 2010 Wray has been a member of the Congress on Dance Research Board (CORD), a principle organisation that profiles the work of dance scholars with its journal and annual international conferences. She has contributed to the Ghana Studies Journal and gives papers regularly at dance and interdisciplinary conferences. She is a member of the African Studies Association (ASA) and a founding member of the newly incorporated African Studies Association in Africa (ASAA), 25 October 2013. She has chaired and was a founding member of ADAD (Association of Dance of the African Diaspora) in the UK and initiated Feedback 33 a voluntary mentoring organisation for dancers in London, providing access to free classes and opportunities for professional networking.

In development

In September 2013 together with her team she launched The JazzXchange Corporation in Orange County at Tedx OrangeCoast. JazzXchange is a non-profit organisation with a mission to give jazz a forward motion through dance music and technology. It is a multi-modal platform for jazz performance, facilitating international exchanges between Africa, Europe and America. In 2014 they will produce their first annual international jazz festival in Orange County and an international trip to Ghana with local people from the communities in the UK and USA.

Companies

Works

Footnotes
  1. Interview in memorial of Jane Dudley at londondance.com
  2. Article Archived 3 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine about Wray and Harmonica Breakdown documentary
  3. https://www.alfredfagonaward.co.uk/features/muhammad-ali-and-me-by-mojisola-adebayo/
  4. https://superslowway.org.uk/projects/muhammad-ali-and-me/
  5. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230248533_8
  6. Review of JazzXchange's Tenth Anniversary, The Times, 17 April 2003
  7. Review of Lucky for Some, The Guardian, 29 January 2003
  8. Review of Harmonica Breakdown, The New York Times, 22 September 2008
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