BY SHAWN DOHERTY

In print | October 2, 2008

This Sunday, Oct. 5, Swarthmore alum and Rhythm-N-Motion founder Jumatatu Poe ’04 will come to campus to share some of his upcoming work with the campus community. His performance will be part of the Windows on the Work series hosted by the Music and Dance Department to showcase last summer’s Swarthmore Project Residency recipients.

Poe will perform from his upcoming work “Alibi,” which he describes as a dance-theater piece and a murder mystery. The piece focuses on the guilt of the narrator and how he experiences images of himself through the viewpoints of other people and deals with being accused of a crime he says he didn’t commit. Poe compares the tone of Alibi to an old Hitchcock movie: sarcastic, ironic, playful and mysterious.

The performance will take place in the Troy Dance Studio and will be followed by an audience question and answer session. Poe believes this informal setting is extremely appropriate, because Alibi is not yet a finished product. He says, “This will be a good opportunity to receive feedback and get some performance practice.”

Much of Alibi was developed during Poe’s time with the Swarthmore Project Residency this summer. Art Administration Intern Liza Clark described this program as an opportunity for two or three dancers or companies, usually with some prior connection to the college, to live on campus and use the performance space for a week or two over the summer. Then, during the academic year these dancers or companies return to campus and share some of their work with the students. The two weeks that Poe spent working on Alibi in July allowed the project to evolve from a trio to a quintet comprised of Poe, Lindsay Browning, Karama Butler, Krystle Henry and John Luna.

Poe’s interest in dance first became serious when he took African dance as a Swarthmore student. Out of this interest, student dance group Rhythm-N-Motion emerged. Poe says the group grew out of the desire of a group of friends to have an outlet for performing the dances they grew up with. At first, the group performed mostly hip-hop, dancehall (a Caribbean version of hip-hop), and Latin dances like salsa. The group soon diversified, however, and it started to incorporate contemporary African dance and other dances of the African Diaspora to its performances. Poe says, “My experience with Rhythm-N-Motion was really great. It is one of the reasons I developed a strong interest in performing and it gave me an outlet to do so.”

Now Poe is back on campus not only as part of the Swarthmore Project Residency but also as a visiting instructor for Modern Repertory and Modern III. He describes being back on campus and teaching dance classes as a little surreal. However, he says his students have been working really hard, and says, “It’s nice to have that Swattie work ethic in class.” Poe tries to take a new approach to teaching dance and believes it is a good experience both for himself and for his students.

Besides focusing on “Alibi” and teaching at Swarthmore, Poe is currently teaching dance classes at Rowan University and the University of the Arts as well as performing for a few companies in Philadelphia. When asked about his packed schedule, Poe replies, “I guess that’s just what Swarthmore prepares you to do, to have a life of being busy.”

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