Barbara Horton Symonds was the type of little girl who couldn’t sit still. As an 83-year-old, she’s still much the same.
As a young woman, after classes at Berkeley Institute, she would sneak out to popular hangouts like the Angels Grotto to dance Calypso while, in her words “people like the Talbot Brothers played back-up”.
In 1942, with the encouragement of her brother, Jimmy Horton, she started a dance studio giving classes in modern dance out of an empty, re-outfitted stable in Somerset. She was the first person to train girls to be majorettes in Bermuda.
“In those days we were doing things for five shillings and ten shillings,” she said. “We were just glad to have some money to give to our parents.”
In 1952 she enrolled at Wilberforce University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, one of the oldest African-American universities in the United States, to study dance and physical education. Today, it is a sister university to Central State University. After graduating, she returned home to Bermuda, but her family urged her to go back to school. She went back and studied at Teacher’s College, Columbia University in New York. She remained in the United States after graduation, and became a dance instructor at Central State University. She specialised in Afro-Rhythmic, Jazz, Abstraction, Religious, Creative Dance for Children, Social and Folk Dance.
In 1957, she started a small dancing group at the university called ‘Les Danseurs’. Interest in dance continued to escalate, and years later with the keen support of students,
and university staff, ‘The Dancers’ became organised as the Central State University Dance Group with Barbara as dance coordinator and choreographer and the health, physical education and recreation department as its home base. The group performed for most university sponsored affairs: convocations, coronation balls, basket ball games, and alumni conventions. Also they fulfilled numerous engagements at the Dayton Convention Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, The Columbus Arts Center, and at the junior and senior highschools around Ohio, amongst other places.
The dancers dazzled their audiences with performances in ‘Roots’, depicting the trials and tribulations of Black people, the ‘Wiz’ displaying excitement and joy, in ‘Star Wars’ choreographed by William Day, ‘There’s Room at the Cross’ portrayed by Resa Estell and lastly ‘Jazz’. Since 1977, the dance group continued to expand both in membership and in repertoire. In 1980 the group became the Central State University Dance Company with the support of the Ohio Arts Council.
Barbara was also active outside the university. She conducted dance workshops at the Cleveland Dance Association, the New York City Dance Conference, National YMCAs and West Virginia Conferences. She attended dance workshops across the country to enhance her dance experience and choreographic skill.
But she felt the growth of dance was inhibited by a lack of driven and motivated dance teachers. In particular, she said there was a great need for black teachers in dance. She believed that dance was a necessity, and a part of everyday culture.
“Man has danced for generations,” she said. “Movement education is a must. Look around us in the era – fat, weak obese. Why? It is a problem. Schools have a great responsibility to have dance as a part of their physical education curriculum. There is a great need in the educational field to improve dance, it is important to our modern society.”
Barbara, who was known to her students as “mom”, retired in 1988 after 36 years, but she only fractionally slowed down. Until 2004, she regularly taught dance to little children at a nearby church. She said this worked out beautifully as it gave her a chance to work with children who otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to study dance.
She currently volunteers at a local hospital helping patients who have no family, and she is very active with the Christ Episcopal Church. One of her most inspiring moments was having the opportunity to do a liturgical dance at Christ Episcopal Church, portraying Harriet Tubman.
“I stay active, but my neighbours go to sleep,” she said. “I bless the man upstairs for keeping my health.”
She has travelled all over the world to places such as the African continent, Rome, Paris and Alaska, among other places. When we spoke to her she was packing for a cruise. When she is not on the move, she loves to get out in her garden and grow vegetables and flowers.
In Barbara’s house she has an entire wall devoted to her many awards and honours. Among them is a 1992 Bermuda distinguished service award, an entry in the prestigious ‘Who’s Who in America’ and Outstanding Teacher in Education and Teacher of the Year awards.
“I pray that God will keep my health, so I may continue serving the youth of tomorrow,” said Barbara.
She has one son, Curtis Symonds and one adopted daughter, Dianne Taylor.
