Wearing a bright red unitard, Homer Bryant strides through the studio, clapping his hands and snapping instructions. His students stand at the bar gracefully, without apparent effort, watching him seriously. One young girl extends an arm a little further; another turns out a foot as far as it will go. “I’m wearing red,” Bryant says. “You know what that means.” What it means is a tough class.
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Bryant tries to impart to his students what he has learned himself in his 20-some years in the dance world. Although he has a background in modern and jazz dance as well, his arabesque is classical enough to have warranted an invitation to teach at the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia. He decided to stay in Chicago, however, to concentrate on his newly opened Bryant Ballet School of Dance, where he teaches six days a week, with classes for all ages at all levels.
From Jacob’s Pillow, where he worked with Ted Shawn, Bryant moved to Brooklyn to continue his studies. “It felt like I was being carried along,” he says. “I was taking classes, doing some performing, sweeping stages for work–dancing all of the time.” During another summer at Jacob’s Pillow Bryant met Arthur Mitchell, founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem: “In sailed Mitchell with his beautiful dancers, and I thought–I want to dance with them.” Bryant swept stages in return for dance classes with Mitchell, and eventually he became a principal dancer in the company and Mitchell’s assistant.
Bryant is currently developing a new teaching tactic: rap ballet. “People often perceive ballet as boring,” he says. “I want to bring it into the 21st century.” Bryant sets classical ballet movements to rap music. “When people ask how the two can be combined, my answer is: a beat is a beat, whether it’s ballet, jazz, rock and roll, or rap.”
