Islanders

Bernard Dove: Island’s Mr. Showbiz Keeps Movin’
by Bret Senft

Bernard Dove is standing in the lobby of the Senior Center on Main Street, resembling a younger version of Chuck Berry ("younger" being a relative term at this point: Berry will be eighty in October. Dove is sixty-six). A group of lively septuagenarians is gathered in the main room for a rousing Bingo blast. The large turquoise rings on Dove’s hands betray a half century of mambo-ing his way through life. Otherwise, he is low-key and calm as he sits on a conference table in a side room and opens his portfolio containing images from his decades-long career.

"I had quit school in ’57. And I got caught up in the crowd that went out drinkin’, partyin’. A lot of the people I knew then aren’t around anymore – they’re in prison, and so on. So I feel grateful for what I’ve done, what dance did for me. But when I was a teenager in the mid-’50s, it was the era of all these groups: Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Coasters, The Teenagers. Sammy Davis was a personal hero – I would have gone that route, definitely: song and dance. Comin’ up, that was the hottest thing, being in a group, a singing group. All the kids wanted to be in a group. But I would go to a party, and each time they were ravin’: people would come up to me and say, ‘You gotta dance! Are you a professional dancer?’ And this sort of pushed me in that direction, towards dance school. I was thinkin’: let’s find out what this is all about."

But as a teenager in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1950s, there was little opportunity to pursue that line of work. "Look, I would have preferred to sing. There was Frankie Lyman and those groups. The Cadillacs. And Allan Freed had those shows at the Paramount downtown. And it was, like, when I was comin’ up, y’know, you didn’t dance. There was no place to go with it unless you wanted to go into tap. But I found that I couldn’t sing with the doo-wop groups. I could dance."

In 1959, he found the Ned Williams School of Dance at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue. "Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The first time I went to class, Ned Williams told me, ‘You’re a natural,’ and if I studied jazz and other techniques, I would improve and be a great dancer. That was encouraging. And I had a passion for it – people would see it. They would tell me that they could see it, feel it." Williams had studied under Katherine Dunham, "and she was one of the great dancers. She was in Cabin in the Sky with Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson."

"Something else stays with me from my teacher in the early ’60s. He said, ‘You could be really great, and work on Broadway.’ But that was way over my head at that time. I was interested in what was going on in the street: going to parties. I realized years later what he was talking about: you have to make that sacrifice, to take those classes, study hard, because once those years are gone – especially for a dancer, there’s only that limited time. And when you go on those auditions – for, say, Chicago, or A Chorus Line – you see all the competition that’s out there. And they’ve studied. And they’re good – really good. So you have to make that sacrifice at that time, so that you later get to do what you want."

Dove studied from 1959 to 1966. After that, "I had the skills and confidence to go out on auditions." He started appearing in stage shows in ’65, starting at The Apollo, performing in the theater’s dance group between acts such as Gladys Knight and the Pips, Flip Wilson, The Manhattans, Richard Pryor, and James Brown (who was shaking it with "Please, Please, Please" and tossing off that cape at regular intervals). He also performed at The Palladium, located then on 52nd and Broadway, where he danced with a company between performances of such bands as Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Joe Cuba. "It wasn’t ‘salsa’ then," Dove recalled. "It was everything else: mambo and cha-cha primarily, but also merengue, samba. It’s all just called salsa now."

In 1968, things changed. "That’s when I had a vision that I wanted to put fashion shows and dance together. Normally, there would be models going back and forth on the runways. But I wanted to make it more theatrical, combining the fashion show, dance, singing, and theater. I felt that I couldn’t keep dancing forever – although here I am, still dancing – but if I combined these other elements, it would create an entire environment, an entire production, and be more entertaining. There were upcoming designers, still in school – at Fashion Institute of Technology, and I would go to boutiques around the City – in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. And I would sign a contract for, say, twelve outfits for formal wear at one boutique, casual wear from someplace else. And we would work out a deal. If the venue was right – F.I.T. or The Brooklyn Academy of Music – and the models came in and selected some clothes, then the boutiques would see that it would be good publicity for them and get on board. The same was true for the individual designers: they knew that people would see their clothes in the right setting."

"This was a new idea as far as I know. Because before that, it was always models on a runway. I used to hire dance groups specializing in Afro-Cuban dance, Modern, Jazz, Salsa, and they would perform between presentations of the fashion." Surrounded by models and dancers, Dove did not lack for the admiration of attractive women. A son was born from an affair in the early ‘60s. And twins from a short-lived marriage that lasted from the late 1960s to early ’70s. After the divorce, he felt he had a make a fresh start, moving to San Francisco. As he explained it: "Well, it was because I wanted to keep putting these shows together. I had already been doing that when I met her, the woman I married. She knew that. But I wanted to continue with it. I would not give up – although, it eventually proved the reason we split up. The way I saw it was, ‘This was my life, my dream.’ Listen, a man with no goals, no direction – what does he have? As far as I was concerned, this was what got me out of the ’hood – and I was not about to give it up. It was a part of me. But it did result in my marriage coming apart."

"Still, I have seven grandchildren. My son, he’ll be forty-four in September, and lives with his family in North Plainfield, New Jersey. It’s funny, too: in my marriage, we had twins – a boy and a girl. And my son had twins – two boys. That’s funny, ain’t it? My twins were born in 1970 – they’re thirty-six now, they all live in a three-story house with their mother in Brooklyn."

In 1986, after 15 years in northen California, he returned to New York when his father passed away. His brother was a Vietnam War veteran, had been wounded, was paraplegic. Financial support from the government provided money for his care, but forced a move to Tampa, Florida. "I had to take care of my brother, but I wanted to stay on the East Coast, rather than move him 3000 miles to California – but his health deteriorated and he died in 1989." Meanwhile, the fashion, dance, and theater events Dove assembled in Tampa were not making money. "People told me, ‘You should go to Miami or Orlando.’ There may have been an audience for it there. But there wasn’t in Tampa." Dove went broke putting on the productions there, declaring bankruptcy before returning to New York.

His mother had a stroke soon after her husband’s death in 1986, and was hospitalized in Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center until her death in 2004. Back in New York, Dove stayed with a girlfriend in Manhattan until an apartment opened up on Roosevelt Island in 1993. Throughout the years, between shows and his own productions, he had always worked for printing companies, having picked up skills in the trade in the 1960s. "I would listen to the old-timers talk about the trade. I found it was important to listen, to learn about how things worked, how to do the jobs. I started out a long time ago in the mailroom, but I asked for a chance to work with the printing press. Usually, you had to go to school for that. But a Mr. Vanhorn – I still remember his name – he let me work with the press. And it’s funny, I still remember the place: the Royal Glow Insurance Company, down in the Wall Street area. They had a printing company in the basement. That was a long time ago, I tell you. And that’s how I got started in printing." It provided employment between shows from the ’60s until he moved to Roosevelt Island, when teaching supplemented his income and he walked away from the trade.

"Coming back to New York, it was a whole process of building back up after being mostly away since 1970." In 1999, Charles Defino was the director of the Roosevelt Island Youth Center, running the Beacon program that included art, dance, music, martial arts. "He hired me to teach dance four days a week," culminating in an annual dance extravaganza in the 600-seat auditorium at PS/IS 217 on Main Street. "I would teach the kids a routine, or sometimes they would create their own dance. And I would bring in professional dancers for different sets, from Latin to Jazz to Hip-Hop, and Tap."

"Now, this was strictly dance, no fashion. By the late 1980s, I realized it was too much work: coordinating the models, the boutiques, the clothes. I just didn’t have the energy to put it all together anymore. When I came back in the early ’90s, I left off fashion, started teaching jazz dance at health clubs, at senior citizen centers, anywhere I could use my expertise." Dove was hired by the New York City Housing Authority as a performing arts consultant in 2002. Children under eighteen in housing projects around the City audition at the Straus Center on 27th Street between Second and Third Avenues to be included in annual productions. "For example, in 2002, we put on a hip hop version of West Side Story. The kids would audition for me, and those who were selected, I would prepare them for the dance numbers." The shows are performed in the Haft Auditorium at F.I.T.

"We tried to set it up as it would be in the real world, to give them that experience: auditions where some are selected and others not, to show them that they had to be disciplined – the same discipline I had when I started out. Back then, with my teacher – you weren’t allowed to look out the window, or lean against the barre, no chewing gum. And definitely: no talking. You were there to learn. If you relaxed for a moment, the instructor said, ‘If you don’t want to be here, you can get out!’ And I wanted these kids to have the same experience. Because with some of these kids, they’d say: ‘I don’t like this step!’ I could never say that to my teacher. And I would tell them, ‘It’s not a matter of liking the step. You have to be open to learning new steps. It’s like learning new types of music: jazz, classical. You have to be open to it. Don’t close the door on yourself.’"

Dove stands up in the meeting room, demonstrates a few steps. "I’m gonna do a little disco jazz, a little James Brown thing that I’m workin’ on. Then the cha-cha, and the mambo." In black spandex short sleeve shirt, black pinstripe dress pants, and two-tone black and white jazz shoes with felt heels for that cool jazz slide. Suddenly Dove is moving along the floor, hips flaring to the left, two-tone shoes improvising to the right.

Now he moves into the Latin dance, beginning with the cha-cha: the shoulders are shaking, the feet skipping along the linoleum, as if to say: "Do your worst, flecked green floor tiles. I will triumph over your squared mediocrity, and master you, indeed, with the cha-cha." Next, the mambo: "Here it is, and it’s all with the hips and the way you move. I add some Afro-Cuban moves and it becomes like this…" The shoulders roll, the head moves left to right. "It’s called ‘isolation of the body.’ Rolling the shoulders, moving the neck left and right. The more you do that, the better you look." He adds Latin jazz to the mambo. A light step here, a lightning move there, and Tito Puente lives.

He sits back down, reflects on the life of the gypsy, the artist. "The way this works is: some people give up. Actors, singers, dancers – if they don’t become an overnight success, they say, ‘I’m done!’ I say, keep going. It may be ten, fifteen, twenty years. You don’t know when it will happen. But if it does, you’ll say, ‘I’m glad I stayed with it.’"

Flipping through his portfolio: photographs taken of him on stage at The Apollo in the mid-’60s; surrounded by models and dancers from his productions in the ’70s and ’80s; fliers from the Youth Center’s productions; his performances since last spring with The Timeless Torches, a troupe that dances during home games at Madison Square Garden for the WNBA’s Liberty Ladies. He stares at the images, the years running by, and grows reflective:

"Y’know, my marriage did break up over this work. But, still, I always tell the kids, ‘Hold on to your dream, It won’t happen overnight. You have to have those goals, that direction.’ I mean, I fell down, I got back up – then fell down, got back up. When I taught the kids at the Charles Defino Children’s Theater, I told them, ‘No one is going to hand you anything.’ The kids would say, ‘I want to dance like you.’ And I would tell them, ‘But you have to go to school, learn, and pay your dues.’"

The Bingo caller from next room announced N-37. Billiard balls clicked on the pool table in the next room. Dove recalled quietly: "I was once told by a professional dancer, ‘You don’t have to give up if you don’t make it to Broadway. You can work in ballroom dancing, cruise ships, teaching in health clubs.’ With all the obstacles, I’m glad I stayed focused, because I’m doing now what I enjoy doing. And the feeling I still get – well, I mean, recently I went to Lincoln Center Mid-Summer Night Swing – people were coming up and asking if I had a school, whether I was a choreographer, if I would teach them the step I was just doing. Ladies asked if they could dance with me, and these were 20- or 25-year-old people, young people, standing around, watching your moves. And that’s a good feeling. I thought, ‘Well, I must have somethin’ goin’ on.’ If you start feelin’ old, you gonna start acting old. I’m stayin’ with it."