A black and white photo of two dancers. A male dancer wearing a harness and briefs with an "S" leaps in the air. A female dancer in a studded top and leopard print briefs, with a tall headpiece, points and looks at him. The background is light.

Repertory

Chelsea's Bells

CHOREOGRAPHER

WORLD PREMIERE

New York City Center, 1989

MUSIC

Robert Ruggieri, Melissa Etheridge

COSTUMES

Monti Harris

LIGHTING

Peter Fanelli

SET

Duke Durfee

RUN TIME

12 Minutes

An invigorating rock duet set to music by Melissa Etheridge and Robert Ruggieri, Chelsea’s Bells explores contemporary courtship rituals and a woman’s power over a man.

Barry Martin was an Ailey-trained former dancer who was left paralyzed from a 1983 car accident while on tour in South Africa with the English dance company Hot Gossip. He was refused transportation in a whites-only ambulance and was denied treatment in a hospital for being Black. His spinal cord was severed during the transfer to another hospital. Returning to New York, he began to choreograph from a wheelchair in 1985 and earned a master's degree in arts administration from New York University. Martin formed a company he called Déjà Vu Dance Theater because, as he said, dance was something he saw now in a new way.