Melanized: Justice, Joy, Race, and Tap Dance

Davon Suttle’s tap performance protests systemic racism and celebrates POC-created art forms

By Meili Gong

If you haven’t seen anyone tap dance for social justice, you don’t know what you’re missing. 

Melanized is a multimedia tap dance performance-protest. Produced, choreographed, and performed by Minneapolis-raised tap dancer Davon Suttles, Melanized takes on the question: What does it mean to live as a person of color? 

Before seeing Melanized, the only tap dancing I’d seen was Gene Kelley’s merry 1952 performance in “Singin’ in The Rain.” I had read on the Melanized website that the show discussed historical injustices like the ethnic genocide in 20th century concentration camps, redlining, and police brutality and wondered if tap dance could carry such weighty subject matter. 

Melanized crumpled up my narrow, cheesy conception of tap dance and tossed it backstage. 

Dancers Davon Suttles, Noah Brewington, and Nina Maxwell brought relentless energy throughout the show, and their passionate steps worked just as well in outcries of injustice as celebrations of afrocentric and south asian culture. When redlined districts rose from the ground, their small, fast footfalls rustled with fearful uncertainty. When the voice of a TV newscaster announced Dontre Hamilton was shot by a police officer 14 times, Suttles, Brewinton, and Maxwell’s feet cried four-teen-times. 

Davon’s use of layered media in Melanized also helped carry its content. In the first act, a three person chorus stood beside the stage singing gospels. A projector above the stage read poetry. The sound system pumped the room with jazz. In the second act, which spotlights American jazz and konnakol—a type of Indian scat song form focused on spoken percussive rhythms—Davon even joined the audience, letting Brewington and Maxwell sing with the trumpet and saxophone of “Ceora” by Lee Morgan. 

Melanized was poetry, film, dance, percussion, gospel, and jazz—and it worked.

Davon is one of few MN based tap dancers representing afrocentric culture. To keep up with his projects, check out his instagram (@davonsuttles).