‘One of the great dance pioneers’: Legacy of SDSU professor honored

All it took was 15 years, searching through hundreds of archives, and crisscrossing the country over and over again — but one historian was able to piece together the story of one of San Diego State University’s most remarkable and influential artists.

His subject was a professor, but not just any professor: It was Dr. Danny Lyon Scarborough, the legendary Africana Studies figure who created SDSU’s Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience and choreographed their shows for a decade.

“He was truly one of the great dance pioneers,” said Dr. Daniel E. Walker, a public historian, SDSU graduate, and former student of Scarborough’s, whose research led him to create 2012’s “When Roosters Crow,” a 10-minute mini-documentary about Scarborough and his work.

“When Roosters Crow” is named after one of Scarborough’s 1986 concerts based on Black American folklore, “When Roosters Crow, Something ’Pose to Happen.”

“It’s an almost universal folklore based on the crowing of the rooster,” Scarborough told the Los Angeles Times in 1986. “They say, if the rooster crows at night, someone will die. And if the rooster crows in the afternoon, someone will be with child … This program deals with the fact that if you stay around long enough, something will happen.”

Walker returned to SDSU over the weekend to honor Scarborough’s life and work with a viewing of “Scarborough’s Faire,” an Emmy award-winning broadcast that has not been seen anywhere since it first aired in 1980 — until now.

This weekend’s multimedia event featured original dancers from Scarborough’s national troupe and was organized by SDSU’s Black Renaissance Theatre Group.

It was also a milestone for Daniel Walker, who said Scarborough’s brief yet brilliant life seared indelible marks on everyone who knew him. Scarborough acted as a muse and an inspiration to his students at State — and elsewhere.

Walker worked with the Department of Africana Studies to unearth film and videotape featuring Scarborough and the Black Repertory Total Theatrical Experience.

Walker discovered Scarborough had left major cultural ripple effects on the East Coast, as well, from Old Dominion University and Virginia Beach to his earliest years, where he first distinguished himself as a top drum major in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Walker has surfaced some 150 hours of archival video of Scarborough. “Now everybody can study dance, study his technique, study his influences.”

But more than that, Daniel Walker says, Scarborough left his legacy all over the country, changing wherever he went just by being himself.

“If you can breathe, you can dance,” Scarborough would famously tell his students. His troupe included students from SDSU’s Africana Studies program, along with performers from the community and local high schools. Scarborough generally preferred untrained, non-professional dancers. He considered the lack of training an asset, which he thought allowed his performers to “dance from their feelings.”

And it worked. The first time he and his troupe appeared on television — that 1980 “Scarborough’s Faire” broadcast — they won an Emmy.

But the people who knew him said that he left them with far more than pleasant memories or a simple ability to dance. They said that his presence in their lives was transformative — something about his flamboyant and generous nature ensured that he changed everyone around him for the better.

“Danny was a special person whose natural spirit of inclusion expanded worlds for those he touched,” said California Secretary of State Dr. Shirley Weber, a longtime SDSU professor before she entered politics. “Whatever anybody says would never begin to touch all the contributions he made.”

She remembers Scarborough as a great colleague, friend and community member, who forever changed San Diego’s cultural scene.

“Black, LGBTQ+, athletic, academic and arts communities were, and continue to be, enhanced from his involvement … And the people and communities he impacted — and he impacted many of them — are better because of him,” she added.

“When I think of him, I think about the best of spirituality and humanity.”

Scarborough was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984. He died five years later, at just 41. But his work did not end with his illness — or even with his death. Before he died, he went public in Ebony Magazine both as queer and as one of the first Black Americans diagnosed with AIDS, pleading with Black people to use condoms and practice safe sex.

That sparked a conversation — about the unequal treatment of different groups and the role of medical bigotry in the AIDS crisis — that continued well after his death.

Walker, who continues his historic research, said that he sees the way he approaches his own work with a multimedia model as a tribute to Scarborough’s legacy.

“He would have said to us right now that he was not just about dance,” Walker said. “He would say that he was creating what he called a living museum where dance, literature, music, sculpture, installation can work together in a whirlwind and create the end product.”

Walker said that all he learned from Scarborough and his research carries the same message at its core.

“It’s to live without boundaries. He taught me that.”