Grand Diva of Dance in the Bay Area, Most Honorable Ruth Beckford
The Grand Diva of Dance in the Bay Area, 91 year old Queen Ruth Beckford was honored tonight (Dec 1, 2016) with a room in her name at Geoffery's Inner Circle, an anchor venue in the Black Arts Movement Business District. I am proud to say I knew and idolized Ruth Beckford when I was a child growing up in West Oakland. I was in elementary school and after school, I would go to New Century Playground next to McFeely Elementary School. There I saw the most beautiful Black women I'd ever seen, Ruth Beckford taught dance at New Century which was a venue in the Oakland Department of Park and Recreation.
I would see her coming and going from New Century and my childhood brain told me she was just absolutely the most beautiful queen my eyes had seen. I cannot say African Queen because I knew nothing about Africa at the time.except Tarzan.
I didn't get to know Ms Beckford at New Century because I wasn't into dance but I must credit the Oakland Rec for initiating my career in drama since I performed in a children's play at Mosswood Park, at which I was called a nigger for the first time by a little white girl who told me, "Nigger, get out of the sandbox."
Throughout the years, I continued to see Ruth Beckford and marvel at her black velvet skin and short natural that she wore during the 50s.
When Geoffery Pete honored her tonight, he remarked that her father was a member of Marcus Garvey's UNIA. Thus, she was a child of Black Nationalist parents. We will offer her biography in a moment, but I know she trained many in dance in the Bay Area and elsewhere. I will name Deborah Vaughan, Ellendar Barnes and Suzzette Johnson. Although her students were absent, her many friends were present. We note also on the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, it was Ruth Beckford who set up the breakfast program for the BPP and made her dance students "serve the people".
Choreographer Beckford was honored with commendations from Congresswoman Barbara Lee and a proclamation from Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney.
BAMBD photographer promises us ample photos tomorrow.
BIOGRAPHY OF CHOREOGRAPHER RUTH BECKFORD
Ruth Beckford (1925 - ) was born in Oakland, California on December 7, 1925. She was one of four children including one sister and twin brothers. Her parents, natives of Jamiaca and Atlanta, Georgia, and her extended family supported her training in dance including tap, acrobatics and ballet as well as music lessons. Miss Beckford performed professionally as a child in vaudeville acts, with her brother and solo, onstage in competition at movie-houses and also at social settings such as Sunday teas and other community events. Miss Beckford continued to train and perform, eventually auditioning for Katherine Dunham's touring company in San Francisco at age seventeen. Offered a contract, Miss Beckford chose to attend UC-Berkeley and perform with Miss Dunham whenever they toured locally.
Miss Beckford studied modern dance technique and ocmposition with Caryl Cuddeback at UC-Berkeley while also training at Welland Lathrop and Anna Halprin's dance studio in San Francisco. She was the first African-American performer in a Bay Area modern dance company and also to become a member of the Orchesis Modern Dance Society at UC-Berkeley.
Upon graduation, Miss Beckford created the United States' first recreational dance department at Oakland's Parks and Recreation Department. She remained project director for twenty and one and a half years, developing a coherent philosophy of teaching the whole child and established a graduated set of programs for girls ages seven through young adult. Several of her students have become significant dance artist/educators including heads of dance departments and professional companies both locally and nation-wide.
Miss Beckford simultaneously taught African-Haitian dance based on the Dunham technique at her private studios and was artistic director of the Ruth Beckford African-Haitian Dance Company. The company toured throughout the college and university circuit before disbanding in 1962.
Her writing career includes the authorized biography of Katherine Dunham, supported by several research trips to Haiti and published by Dekker (NY) in 1979. She has also written her own autobiography, two cookbooks, three original plays and an article for the California Dance Educator's journal.
Her trilogy of plays titled Tis the Morning of My Life was produced by Ron Thompson of the Oakland Ensemble Theater Company, where she has served on the Board of Directors. The play have been performed in the East Bay and in New York and was also filmed for a television pilot series. Miss Beckford has also sung and acted on stage, in feature films, television and commercials including two PBS television movies directed by Maya Angelou.
Her many honors and community acknowledgements include acting as a dance panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts (1972-74), and induction into the Black Filmmakers, Oakland Parks and Recreation and the Bay Area's Isadora Duncan Dance Community Hall of Fame.
Miss Beckford closed her private dance studios in 1975 and had several back surgeries. Based on her life-time of helping others, including co-creating a free breakfast program with the Black Panther Party, Miss Beckford developed a new career in social work-related programs. Recent work has included counseling at the City of Oakland Job Training Partnership Act office and also at the Oakland Earthquake Support Services Center after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. She also developed, with collaborator Ron Thompson, a motivational speaking business for both homeless and corporate clients. Miss Beckford was crowned Ghana Queen Mother of Dance at Harambere Dance ensemble performance in 1990.
Drummond: Ruth Beckford still fabulous after 80
Former dancer and choreographer Ruth Beckford, 88, is photographed at her home in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, May 8, 2013. Beckford is an Oakland Tech alumni and taught at the Katherine Dunham school in New York. Among her many accomplishments, she’s a founder of the Oakland Dance Association. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Oakland native Ruth Beckford is a Bay Area dance legend who used to thrill audiences with her acrobatic moves.
Beckford, was a disciple of the late Katherine Dunham, the matriarch of the modern black dance movement. Beckford taught at Dunham’s school in New York and studied voodoo dance rituals under Dunham in Haiti. Beckford later returned to the Bay Area to open the Ruth Beckford African-Haitian Dance Company. She also started a modern dance department at the Oakland Office of Parks and Recreation, where she taught dance to countless young people over the years.
Beckford, 87, who could once make her body perform feats others could only dream of, uses a walker. Yet she refuses to let age-related ailments interfere with her zest for life.
On Saturday, Beckford and fellow octogenarians, former television journalist Belva Davis, genealogist Electra Price, educator Careth B. Reid, and youngster Dezie Woods-Jones, 72, will share their advice for living life to the fullest in one’s golden years.
I recently interviewed Beckford at her downtown Oakland home, where she has lived for 50 years, to talk to her about what it’s like to be 87.
Q: You’ve lived through a lot of historic events. What stands out the most?
A: My sweet 16 on Pearl Harbor Day. We all went to the movie. We’re sitting in the movie eating milk duds … and on the screen the movie stopped, and it said all military personnel report to your bases the United States is at war with Japan, we are getting bombed. … Folks talk about 9/11. Our best friends were Japanese kids. Then, when they got evacuated to their camps, we all cried; our friends were gone. It was terrible. And no one ever came back.
Q: What’s the most important thing to keep in mind when you turn 80?
A: You don’t have to prove yourself anymore. It’s about you. Don’t be an on-call baby sitter. You can still have a good time. Just because you are 80 doesn’t mean sit down and die. Make your bucket list different. The main thing is to be independent. I get on Paratransit and go to Lorraine Hansberry (Theatre) to see a play. I saw that show with the Chinese dancers, that was great. I take myself out to lunch, went and did my nails yesterday.
Q: What kinds of health challenges have you had?
I am the original bionic woman. Five back surgeries. Two hip replacements and one adjustment. Rotary cuff. Four trigger fingers. And I’m getting ready to have a new knee as soon as I get back from Atlanta. My innards are good. It’s all these joints.
Q: So how do you deal with declining physical health and not getting depressed?
A: I’ve had five back surgeries, but I can get up on that walker, and I like to go out. So there’s always somebody worse off. Happiness is an inside job.
Q: Have you ever smoked?
A: Never. Never made sense to me to even sneak it. When I went to Cal, everyone had cigarette holders and cases and things. I always thought that’s a waste of my money.
Q: Tell me about your diet.
A: I had an attack of gout, which makes you stand up and say thank you Lord it’s over. So I can’t eat meat or fish or shellfish. It’s a choice. I can say let’s go out and have a martini and then have an attack of gout; it ain’t worth it. I can cook chicken and turkey any way you want. I eat vegetables.
Q: Do you exercise?
A: I do my recline cycle three times a week, which I hate with a passion. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7 o’clock.
Q: How many of your friends are still living?
A: So many of my friends are gone or have Alzheimer’s, and it’s just very, very sad. That’s why I say keep in touch with your old friends because they get fewer and fewer and fewer.
Q: What is your secret to longevity?
A: I don’t let things stress me out. Anything I cannot touch and help I’m not going to let it get on me. Stress will give you the heart attacks, the strokes and all that business.
Q: Do you use the Internet?
A: I don’t have a computer. I’m not interested in the Facebook and the backbook and the hipbook and the earbook. I don’t want to know that you walked across the street today.
Q: What advice do you have for younger people?
A: Quit smoking now. Don’t wait. Don’t worry about what folks think of you. If you want to do something, and you’re true to yourself, go do it.
The workshop is Saturday at Geoffrey’s, 410 14th St., Oakland. Registration is from 8 to 9 a.m. Admission is $25, exact change, cash only. There is a handicap elevator around the corner on Franklin Street and public parking at Webster and 14th Street.
