By Clarence Fanto, Special by The Eagle

BECKET- For Palestinian-American choreographer and dancer Samar Haddad King, the art of movement has always come naturally. “My mother always said I danced around before I spoke,” Samar explained. (She prefers to use her full name to emphasize her Middle Eastern roots.) Many in the world of dance share that childhood memory. What’s most unusual about Samar, now 26, is that she started her Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre in New York City four years ago, when she was just out of college. The multicultural group, which appears frequently on stages not only in this country but also in the Arab world, will offer a free “Inside-Out” performance next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the out-door Marcia and Seymour Simon Performance Space, high in the hills of Jacob’s Pillow.

The company’s goal is to forge a connection between the performers and the audience “through compelling, absorbing and transformative dances that express the countless faces of humanity.” Samar said. Samar’s background is genuinely cross-cultural—her mother is Palestinian, born in Jerusalem and raised in Amman, Jordan. Her father is American; the couple, now living in Washington, D.C., met at her mother’s citizenship party and within a year were married in Hong Kong. Samar was born in Huntsville, Ala., was classically trained in ballet and was planning to attend the University of California Berkeley to study political science. Having traveled widely, including frequent trips to the Middle East, she had a sudden change of heart after her brother moved to New York City. At the last minute, she was admitted to a joint program run by Fordham University in the Bronx and the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. After forming a close friendship with her teacher and mentor, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Samar graduated cum laude with a BFA degree. While in the program, she spent time in Spain and also lived in Amman for a semester, where she began researching dance with an eye toward choreography rather than performance.

“I had moved to New York City three weeks before 9-11,” Samar recounted in a telephone interview from lower Manhattan. “I saw how it influence attitudes, and that drives a lot of my work. I’ve always been moved by the power of body movement to express feelings and ideas—for example, all Arabs aren’t terrorists. My themes are about taking down barriers, finding common ground because we’re all human and we have the ability to be both positive and negative.” Just two days before graduating from Fordham, Samar and her classmate, Zoe Rabinowitz, learned of an artist-in-residency program at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in Manhattan. They collaborated on a grant proposal. “We were a good team; I would talk and talk and she would write, making the proposal come to life,” Samar explained. Rabinowitz became the associate artistic director of Samar’s nascent dance theater. They lined up various sponsors, including the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and converted an old warehouse at the corner of Canal and Hudson Streets into a dance studio shred by five artists. “We were all fresh out of college, and I had no intention of formally starting a company,” Samar recalled. “But we started creating pieces in a positive, nurturing working environment. The first piece, “Hiyaat Noor”, focused on a fictitious character through Arabic text and music. For me, it was very much a turning point. So many people were shocked that she was an Arab woman going through life changes that many people could relate to.”

After the work was performed at the Tribeca center, Samar formed a sole proprietorship for her dance theater and is now close to achieving non-profit status. Yaa Samar! Is a part-time company of 11 members who write grants and teach; Samar has led workshops in Amman, in Burgos and Valencia, Spain, and in Huntington, England. As she explains it, Yaa Samar! is an Arabic summons to an evening of art and fulfillment-specifically a combination of cultural themes, technology, innovative costume design and the use of fabric to help tell stories through dance. The aim is to help audiences understand Arab culture and the universality of human experience.

Although Samar still performs, she spends most of her time now leading and inspiring the dancers in her company. “I see myself through all the dancers, they have such strong stylistic voices,” she emphasized. “My ego isn’t involved as much now; I need to be objective, to look at the work in its entirety instead of myself.”

For Jacob’s Pillow, Samar’s presentation is family-oriented and designed for the outdoor performing space. “It’s a diverse program to take the on an adventurous ride,” she said. “I like people to feel something, to be taken somewhere they wouldn’t have gone without seeing the show, allowing them to be moved in their head and soul.” The centerpiece of the four-work program is “Frozen Belief.” Samar describes it as “The most overtly social, political piece, a strong statement in three languages—English, Arabic and Hebrew, cultures that are frequently at odds. It deals with breaking down barriers involving religion and faith, talking about a general faith in humanity, a communal feeling that rather than being a part of three monotheistic religions, now it’s morphed into an individualistic faith people have in other people. “It’s a very intimate piece. Hopefully, people will be moved by it and will realize there isn’t so much difference between people, so there’s no reason to hate or to fight or to be negative.”