By Fletcher Word
The Truth Editor
The Toledo Opera, once again, did not have to venture far to find a choreographer for its upcoming production, South Pacific. Right here in town is a proven and experienced artist, one whom the Opera has used before on several occasions and with great success.
Domonique Glover has demonstrated in recent years that the Toledo Opera is just the right setting for his dance creations. He has previously choreographed Ragtime and Merry Widow after appearing on the Toledo Opera stage for the first time in 2018’s I Dream production.
Glover’s path to his current eminent position has been a circuitous one indeed. As a student at Scott High School in the early 2000s, he would not have envisioned such artistic success at this point in his life.
Glover graduated in 2004 from Scott with a GPA of 4.56, as the valedictorian of his class, and with an academic scholarship to Morehouse College. Chemistry seemed to be in his future.
Several years ago, Glover spoke with The Truth about his college academic experience and how he became enamored of dance while a student at Morehouse.
“About a year and a half in, chemistry just wasn’t clicking for me,” said Glover. “I don’t remember when the seed was planted in me but we were basically told as children that a high school diploma was not enough, and that we weren’t finished with school until we at least earned a bachelor’s degree. It wasn’t forced on us but it was highly encouraged and rewarded, and after a while that ethic became instilled in us and second nature.”
So Glover reassessed his objective, and switched his major to math. “Something I always enjoyed and was good at,” he said. Math was the skill that he knew wouldn’t fail him. “There are certain things that I consider gifts,” said Glover. “It’s my ability to take mathematical information, and retain that information, process it, and explain it to someone else.”
Glover was back on track academically. And then came the dancing.
On a whim, he says, he joined a dance troupe “Just for kicks. I felt old because I started so late,” he said. “But most of the people who are gaining notoriety are in my age group.” (The Truth, March 8, 2017)
Glover graduated from Morehouse with a degree in mathematics and returned to Toledo to begin a career as a teacher and to continue dancing.
“The more I traveled, the more dancing I did – it kind of snowballed … and I started to get more ideas.”
A friend asked him if he had ever choreographed and that led to an opportunity to create the dance routines in the musical Fame at the Toledo Repertory Theatre.
“I enjoyed the creative part,” he says of his first venture. Now in his latest venture, South Pacific, there is so much more to enjoy about what he calls the “classic of classical” musicals. “The orchestration is beautiful,” he notes.
However, beyond the plentiful, outstanding musical numbers such as “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gona Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair,” “There Is Nothing Like a Dame,” “Happy Talk,” there is also the fact that South Pacific, as with a few other musicals of the 1950s such as West Side Story, began to try to raise audiences’ consciousness about some of the issues plaguing society, such as racism.
“Carefully Taught,” Glover notes, “is a really haunting song” about racism.
In addition to his artistic endeavors, Glover is also a teacher, currently in support services at St. Francis de Sales. As for the future, he is undecided about his next move. He wants “to do my own thing,” but he’s not in any hurry to move out for the bright lights of Broadway or Hollywood yet. So perhaps, Toledo will be able to hold on to one of the Glass City’s glittering artistic talents for w while.
“I believe it doesn’t really matter where you do it … people will come to support you [if you do it well,” he says.
Performances of South Pacific at the Valentine will be on February 14 and 16. For ticket information contact 4190255-7464 or toledoopera.org