Tuesday, February 2, 2010

dancing a dozen...

Putting on twelve not- so -easy pieces-- 7 of which are not new to me, but are to most of the dancers--keeps everyone on their toes, needing to do their homework(keep working on movement during the odd off-time in the fluorescent light of a mirror-less studio). SUITE LOUIS is some of my most difficult and rhythmic compositions and am grateful when its veterans say they remember the rhythms, if not the steps. Trying to figure out the ins and outs of two casts in certain roles and adding in text, solos, and some of the new segments in a social commentary is an endless jigsaw puzzle. The new J-5 piece in tribute to the young MJ and his brothers is a refreshing delight...Of course, there are the lyrics I'd been singing wrong for years...if you can believe it, I was in the Michael Jackson fan club as a little girl, and these are the first 45s I bought---the songs of my youth. I learned how to groove to this stuff! It's fun trying to translate that into bodies a generation younger... all sorts of moves surprise me and I relish the movement memories my body holds that are unlocked by our sense of hearing! Then there is the assembling of audio and video clips from comedians I grew up on....Flip Wilson was (and still is) my favorite comedian who is family friendly, as was Cosby, though his was a bit bent; and of course the fruitless search for a clip of Richard Pryor minus an f-bomb in every sentence! Thanks to my loving partner ( a tough job --- being my husband and collaborator, God bless him!) and Flip Wilson, we did find one straight up comedy routine with few words and lots of movement---Richard Pryor was quite a mover! "Playing the Dozens" has really profoundly disturbing history and impact on our self promotion as Black people, and it is difficult to educate, question, and offer some comment in dance on its (d)evolving form of sparring. A challenge I might only scratch the surface on this go-round, tying all these strands together...Certainly the "I Have A Dream" speech is a wonderful balm in an age where rhetoric is cheap and lacks vision......well I need more days like today in terms of productivity and inspiration. Thanks for the prayers...keep them coming!