Jumping the Broom featuring Gesel Mason photo by Enoch Chan

Jumping the Broom was originally created in 2005 as a solo for performer/choreographer Gesel Mason’s No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers. No Boundaries sought to expand the viewer’s concept of Black dance through Mason’s performance of an evening of repertory featuring solos from a rage of noted contemporary African American choreographers including Donald McKayle, Jawole Zollar, David Roussève, Kyle Abraham, Bebe Miller, and Rennie Harris.

Equal parts protest and dialogue, Jumping the Broom was created before same sex marriage was legal. The piece juxtaposes emotional personal narratives around the ban on slave marriage with personal narratives around the contemporary ban on gay marriage in an attempt to elicit an empathetic response from the viewer towards same sex marriage. (Jumping the broom is a ritual of forbidden marriage performed by American slaves.) Roussève wrote, choreographed, and directed the work which premiered at Washington DC’s Dance Place prior to extensive touring.

In 2018 No Boundaries received an NEA grant to film one final public performance in order to convert the work form a live performance archive into a digital one. The performance was presented in New York by 651 Arts and RestorationART/The Billie Holiday Theatre in April 2018. Footage of this performance will now be combined with rehearsal footage and interviews with the choreographers to create a documentary and online platform. Roussève worked in studio with Mason in early 2018 to remount and clarify the work while also being interviewed for the documentary.