9 minute read
THE POWER OF PEGASUS
PEGASUS POWER
TURNS 100
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By Elizabeth Muscari and David Muscari
What do baseball legend Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks, eclectic performance artist Erykah Badu, jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and decorated singer-songwriters Norah Jones and Edie Brickell share in common?
They’re all graduates of
Dallas’s esteemed Booker T.
Washington High School. Today, the school is considered among the nation’s top magnet schools, an effective launch pad for artists, musicians, actors, dancers, and writers. Its history is long, complex,
DALLAS’S ACCLAIMED BOOKER T. WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS OBSERVES A CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR WITH AN EYE ON ITS HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE BOTH PAST AND PRESENT
Known as the “Queen of Neo Soul,” Dallas native Erykah Badu is a Booker T. grad and an award-winning singer, actor, and producer and, as school officials suggest, “a tale of two schools.” This year, the school will observe an important milestone when it turns 100.
It has the unique distinction of being the first all-Black high school in Dallas. In those days, the sports teams were called the Bulldogs, like the ones that Banks led in the 1950s.
The school doesn’t offer sports anymore, and its towering mascot is now Pegasus, the fiery mythological winged horse.
But the two eras, Bulldogs and Pegasus, are intimately linked. The centennial celebration will focus a good deal on the first era, which in some respects has been lost.
Opened in 1922, Booker T. Washington High School became the only high school in Dallas that allowed students of color, attracting Black kids from all over town. In 1943, it was the first Black school in Texas to organize a chapter of the National Honor Society. A $1 million renovation in 1952 gave it a new name: Booker T. Washington Technical High School. The school was repurposed as the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing & Visual Arts in 1976, inheriting
and expanding the magnet arts curriculum that had been in place at Skyline High School since 1970.
Booker T., as it’s commonly known today, represents the first building in Dallas’s sprawling 68acre urban Arts District.
The original school, a preserved and renovated
historical landmark, is connected to a 200,000-square-foot facility that was built in 2008 at a cost of $65 million.
Booker T. has consistently earned national recognition.
It boasts 29 Presidential Scholars in the arts, hundreds of awards from Downbeat Magazine — the largest number of any school, including all colleges and universities in North America — as well as playwriting and art honors.
Last year, $37 million in scholarships were offered to 280 students; the record is $67 million for 211 students in the class of 2017.
All 950 students in grades 9-12 must audition for coveted
spots in dance, music, visual arts, and theater conservatories at the Arts Magnet, a public school in the Dallas Independent School District.
“I felt in good company with a lot to learn from interesting, empathetic students and happy creative teachers,” explains Brickell, who’s enjoyed a long career in
EDIE BRICKELL, CLASS OF 1984
Photo by Carter Rose
Photo by Benjamin Doan-Stevens
Top: As part of the 68-acre Dallas Arts District, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (lower right corner of ariel photo) is a magnet for talented students
Middle: Booker T. students performing at the Nasher Sculpture Center
Left: Nine-time Grammy winner and Booker T. alum Norah Jones has sold more than 50 million records worldwide
Photo by Nate Rehlander
From left:
Dance class at Booker T.
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell perform at the Winspear Opera House in 2014
Baseball legend and Booker T. grad Ernie Banks receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 2013
jazz players from the music rooms, the quiet concentration of drawing classes and the smell of fresh paper, the extroverted kids bouncing loudly out of theater classes and my memory of all the dancers roaming the halls with such beautiful posture and easy laughter, made the school feel enchanted. It was a privilege to be a part of that inspiring community.”
Photo By Sharen Bradford/The Dancing Image Left: A Booker T. dancer in action Above: The late, great Roy Hargrove is shown as a Booker T. student in the Dallas Morning News
pop music touring as a solo act and with Steve Martin’s Steep Canyon Rangers. The pair also collaborated on the Broadway play Bright Star.
Brickell, who transfered to Booker T. from a large Dallas school with peprallies and sports traditions, says, “The calm sympathetic energy of Arts Magnet felt like a refuge. The sound of serious jazz players from the music rooms, the quiet concentration of drawing classes and the smell of fresh paper, the extroverted kids bouncing loudly out of theater classes and my memory of all the dancers roaming the halls with such beautiful posture and easy laughter, made the school feel enchanted. It was
Marquee names such as Badu, Jones, and other high-profile grads may get the headlines, but others are integral players in respected performance companies and artistic endeavors around the globe. The school reached a record-setting milestone when New York’s Juilliard School announced in 2017 that five of the young men in its incoming freshman class of 12 male dance students were from Booker T.
Like the “Julliard Five,” who are all are currently dancing in distinguished companies in the U.S. and throughout Europe, Booker T. grads dot the arts landscape.
Multiple Grammy Award nominee jazz singer Jazzmeia Horn, actresses Elizabeth Mitchell and Dylis Croman, painter Christian Schumann, muralist Chris Arnold, dancer/ choreographer Gesel Mason, and contemporary rock drummer, Aaron Comess of the Spin Doctors are all part of an extended family.
Jana DeHart is an Emmywinning writer, producer, and director with 30-plus years of experience in TV, on Broadway and more. The 1979 graduate proudly calls her Booker T. experience “life-changing.”
The path of Serenity Carr, a dance student who graduated in 2001, was unexpected.
She is a Merriam-Webster associate editor who recently added “glamping” to the dictionary.
“It’s not a career I ever pictured for myself…but now that I’m doing it, I can’t imagine enjoying anything else as much,” Carr says.
DR. SCOTT RUDES, PRINCIPAL
Above:
Booker T. alumna Gesel R. Mason is a performer, artistic director, and associate professor of contemporary dance and choreography at the University of Texas at Austin
A 1946 school newspaper announces a talent show
A 1944 school newspaper, The Booker T. Informer, celebrates Miss Booker T., Eddie Lou Best, and her “assistants.”
VANESSA MEIER, CLASS OF 1984
“I am grateful the mission is still alive and well,” says Emmanuel Gillespie, a 1985 visual arts graduate and 3D art instructor at the Winston School of Dallas. “Much of the experiences I had, as I am sure students are experiencing today, are so valuable. “
“I was encouraged to try different things and not feel weird about it, which gave me the courage to be open-minded to whatever I encountered on my career path,” explains 1984 graduate Vanessa Meier, a Los Angeles script supervisor for shows including “Last Man Standing,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “NCIS.”
On set, she routinely draws on things she learned at Booker T. “It could be working out screen direction with a director, running lines with actors, coordinating continuity with props departments, or sending script revisions to the writers.”
Principal Dr. Scott Rudes believes these unstoppable creative forces are the essential spirit of the institution.
“It’s rare to go anywhere where you won’t run into somebody from Booker T.,” he says.
“Every single time I go to New York City, I will be on the street somewhere and run into an alum.
“When we were at Carnegie Hall with our music groups, we met people who just happened to be passing by, [and saw the marquee] and entered
Clockwise from top left:
Photo By Sharen Bradford/The Dancing Image
Denton’s Grammy-winning polka pioneer Brave Combo has been home for trumpeter and Booker T. graduate Danny O’Brien for years
A 1946 Booker T. Informer salutes the school’s commitment to a Hi-Y leadership program for young men Denton’s Grammy-winning polka
Students in performance
just to say, ‘Hey, I’m a Booker T. Washington graduate!’”
What path does Rudes foresee for the school?
He envisions the school redefining the arts, innovating, and developing collaborations between art forms to “break down some of the barriers and silos that might currently exist.”
“I see us continuing to be creative revolutionaries and redefining what it is to be artists in this era,” he says. “Citizen artists, activist artists for social change… who are able to use the artistry that we instill in them and model that for the change we want to see in society.
Fly high, Pegasi.
A PERSONAL NOTE
“Elizabeth’s mom and I told her she could have an ordinary high school experience in one of the neighborhood schools or an extraordinary one at Booker T. Washington,” says writer David Muscari. “She chose wisely.” Elizabeth, a 2016 graduate who is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas, says Booker T. set a valuable tone for her life and academic career. “The history is the glue that connects all of us,” she explains. Her classmates are working in hit movies and on Broadway, dancing, playing music, and performing around the world. She calls it a “special club” that stays in touch and supports each other to this day. That’s Pegasus power. — DM
Elizabeth Muscari
