Less than two weeks after Loris Beckles moved to Dallas, his partner died of complications from AIDS. Andre R. George had come to the city in 1994 to join Dallas Black Dance Theatre. The next year, George launched his own troupe, Nova: A Dancers’ Company.
Rather than returning to New York, where he had performed for years in the Alvin Ailey junior companies and for the groundbreaking choreographer Eleo Pomare, Beckles decided to stay and carry on George’s work and his own in Dallas.
Over three decades, he has made his reputation training young dancers at the South Dallas Cultural Center and Greiner Middle School, some of whom who have gone on to bigger stages. He has put on performances of his choreography and that of guest artists and revived pieces by Pomare and other historically significant Black dance-makers like Donald McKayle…