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The Story of the Jukebox

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2025| 6 Comments »

Photo: Lisa Guerriero.
A restored 1946 Wurlitzer jukebox model 1015, known as “the Bubbler” for the bubble tubes on its front.

In the 1950s, when the jukebox was at the height of its popularity, one of my brothers received for Christmas a magnificent toy version. I remember it lighting up in bright colors when you turned it on. It could not exchange records like tan authentic jukebox, but it was real enough to become the wonder of the neighborhood, at least for a while.

At the Smithsonian, Steven Melendez reminds us that the basic concept was launched long before the 1950s.

“In 1889, a San Francisco tavern called the Palais Royale debuted a hot new attraction: a modified Edison phonograph that, when a customer inserted a nickel, played music from a single wax cylinder. Electrical sound amplification was still years away, so customers had to insert stethoscope-like tubes into their ears to hear anything. …

“Despite this unwieldy setup, the machine reportedly brought in more than $1,000 (some $34,000 today) in less than six months, and coin-operated music machines soon proliferated in bars, at drugstores and even in new listening parlors across the country. Alas, poor sound quality meant selections couldn’t be soft or subtle, so popular offerings included such earsplitting numbers as John Philip Sousa marches and the novelty whistler John Yorke AtLee performing popular ditties of the day. By the early 1900s, the machines struggled to compete against player pianos and other automated instruments that could entertain whole venues with higher-quality audio. …

“Record players continued to improve in quality and volume, and pay-to-play phonographs made a huge comeback in the 1920s, paving the way for the jukebox era. In 1927, the Automatic
Musical Instrument Company unveiled the first amplified, multi-record coin phonograph.

“Jukeboxes — they took on this nickname in the 1930s in reference to African American ‘juke joints’ of the South — introduced the world to music on demand, for far less than buying a record (and on better equipment than people had at home). … Danceable big-band numbers and tunes like the ‘Beer Barrel Polka’ were early hits, and the irrepressible popularity of jukeboxes soon rocketed artists like swing impresario Glenn Miller to national fame, creating an audience for loud, catchy, rollicking tunes. …

“Jukebox operators came to account for a majority of record sales, as they frequently changed out selections to keep customers dropping nickels. Using meters within the machines, operators could track which tunes were most popular at which locations, and they programmed boxes accordingly, offering a mix of national hits and more regionally specific selections. The latter included many tunes by Black and working-class musicians, in folk genres such as country and blues that tended to get scant airplay on the radio of the day but soon found appreciative listeners on jukeboxes. 

“By the early 1940s, about 500,000 jukeboxes dotted the country, sometimes inspiring too much of a ruckus: Newspapers frequently reported on bar fights over music selections. …

“Jukeboxes had a chance to prove their patriotic bona fides during World War II, when they provided vital entertainment on military bases and at troops’ canteens, sometimes on machines donated by public-spirited American operators — not a single nickel required. …

“After the war, stylish and streamlined jukebox cabinets in diners let teenagers listen to rock ’n’ roll at volumes generally impossible (or at least inadvisable) to achieve at home. Jukeboxes became indelibly associated with 1950s youth culture. … The format of hit-after-hit music queues also helped inspire teen-friendly Top 40 radio, replacing older formats that defaulted to playing several songs in a row by a single artist.

“Over the next couple of decades, jukeboxes would see their numbers dwindle as fans turned to other sources of entertainment, including increasingly high-fidelity home stereos, television and the transistor radio.”

Teddy Brokaw continues the jukebox story at Smithsonian with a description of how mobsters saw easy money in the phenomenon.

“The jukebox,” Brokaw reports, “with its all-cash business model and fungible record-keeping, showed clear potential for tax evasion and money-​laundering operations and quickly caught the attention of organized crime.

“By the 1940s, Mafiosi, foremost among them Meyer Lansky, had pioneered the typical racket: Buy up all the jukeboxes in an area and lease them to businesses in exchange for 50 percent or more of the take. But the scheme’s true brilliance was its scope: The mob owned not only the jukeboxes, but also, often, the record companies supplying the discs and the contracts of the artists cutting the records. It was a masterpiece of vertical integration, and it worked gangbusters.

“By the mid-1950s, one enterprising gangster — Chicago Outfit member Jake ‘Greasy Thumb’ Guzik … controlled 100,000 of America’s half-million jukeboxes and was raking in several million dollars a year. 

“With made men at the helm, the jukebox industry relied on hits — of both kinds. Mobsters could make or break an artist’s career through their control over what made it into the machines and thus climbed the charts. And beatings, bombings and even murders were just ‘one of the liabilities of the business,’ as a Wurlitzer sales executive testified to a Senate investigative committee in 1959. Jukebox owners who didn’t play nice risked seeing their machines destroyed, while rival jukebox distributors who refused to cut the mob in on their operations were whacked on more than one occasion.

“The jukebox may be a relic of a bygone era, but the mob’s influence in jukeboxes remains. As recently as 2018, a reputed mobster was gunned down. … The victim’s funeral procession was led by a car carrying — what else? — a jukebox made of flowers.”

More at Smithsonian, here.

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Permission to Be Silly

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 11, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Barbara Lowing/Common People Dance Project.
Goofing around on stage is the whole point at Australia’s Common People Dance Eisteddfod.

You could pull many different lessons from today’s story, but one that stands out to me is the way that a mother’s insecurity can warp a young child’s self-image, making a revolution necessary. The revolution may turn out playful and silly, a childlike release like a new dance style in Australia.

Dee Jefferson interviews an enthusiast called Bryony Walters, whose mother used to shame her about her weight. Bryony tells Jefferson it “affected her relationship with exercise, and movement in general. ‘It always seemed like a punishment that I was inflicting upon myself. … It wasn’t a thing you were engaging with to have fun or to feel good.’

“But when she saw a post in her community Facebook group about dance classes for a DIY eisteddfod, Bryony’s curiosity was piqued. …

“Neridah Waters and her Facebook post set off the amateur dance revolution known as Common People Dance Eisteddfod. Now in its seventh year, the project invites people of all ages, abilities and bodies to dance together – to 80s and 90s music, while wearing leotards, sequins, sparkles and glitter – culminating in a dance-off as part of the Brisbane festival. ….

“Waters, a stalwart of Brisbane’s alt cabaret scene, describes the project as a mix between Young Talent Time, sports carnivals, 80s gameshow ‘It’s a Knockout’ – and, of course, the Australian Rock Eisteddfod Challenge: a nation-wide high school competition that was popular in the 80s and 90s.

“Bryony, who has performed in five Common People Dance Eisteddfods, says it’s a ‘rare and special’ opportunity to ‘engage in really joyful movement in circumstances where the concern isn’t how you look.’ …

“Like Bryony, Amanda [Dell] came to Common People with an unfulfilled childhood dream of dancing. This year, she is dancing for Southside, one of seven teams of between 30 and 65 people competing in the eisteddfod, each performing their own routine of around five minutes – featuring moves with names like Jazz on Ya Face, Chicken Chicken Pelvis and Aunty Pat’s Christmas Trifle.

“Waters, who came up with the idea for the eisteddfod during a middle-of-the-night burst of inspiration, had no idea it would snowball into an annual juggernaut attracting hundreds of participants. Back in 2019, she was experiencing a lull in her career after becoming a mother. She’d been teaching community dance classes that were attracting middle-aged men and shy people who ‘wanted me to teach them seriously, from scratch, how to dance,’ she says.

“ ‘I wanted to do something more theatrical. I wanted participants who were as silly [as me].’

“As soon as she posted her alternative rock eisteddfod idea ‘it went nuts.’ she says. ‘People understood immediately the sense of humor behind it.’

“Starting off in her local community hall, the project spiraled into classes and teams in different suburbs. Brisbane festival came on board to host the eisteddfod as part of their program, and before the inaugural event the dancers of each team marched through the streets of South Bank to converge in a dance battle outside the festival’s Spiegeltent – set to Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger.’

“Amanda, who was part of the march – wearing a leotard for the first time, not to mention in public – remembers it being nerve-racking. ‘The way that women think about their bodies, that’s a big thing to do,’ she says. ‘But you’ve got the power of the group. And that day is one of the best days of my life – it was just such joy and excitement.’

“Waters says, ‘We had women who were size 20 or 24 in leotards who looked like superhero versions of their suburban selves.’ …

“From the get-go, Common People Dance Eisteddfod has predominantly attracted middle-aged women. … Some are former dancers looking to let their hair down, most are amateurs or people who have never danced. Whatever their reasons for coming, they stay for the sense of community, the confidence boost – and the endorphins.

“Amanda, who describes the last few years of her personal life as ‘a shocker,’ rarely misses a class. ‘I know that no matter how I’m feeling beforehand, I will feel better afterwards,’ she says. ‘Having people that you meet with regularly, who you can rely on for that emotional support and friendship and fun – those things are invaluable.’

“For some, the eisteddfod is life-changing. Waters tells me about Zak, a shy teenage boy who slowly came out of his shell doing Common People’s living-room dance parties during lockdown. When IRL classes resumed, Waters encouraged him to take more of a leading role – culminating in him dancing and lip-syncing to a packed house for the eisteddfod.

“A couple of months later, Zak decided he wanted to run for school captain. ‘His mum said “Are you sure?” and he said, “Mum, look, I stood in front of 1,500 people and did the dance battle. I can do anything now,” ‘ Waters says. ‘And so he did it – and he ended up becoming school captain.’ “

More on the Brisbane Dance Festival at the Guardian, here. The Guardian has no paywall, but please consider donating to them — any amount.

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Minnesota’s Somali Dance Troupe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Haley Friesen.
The Somali Museum Dance Troupe practiced at the Tapestry Folk Dance Center in Minneapolis a few years ago.

It has not been an easy adjustment for Somali refugees who were settled in Minnesota years ago. It’s been especially hard for new generations to find their way. So I’m happy to read about the positive things.

Amina Isir Musa reports at Sahan Journal that “the Somali Museum Dance Troupe’s TikTok presence has helped popularize traditional dances among U.S.-born Somalis.”

She says, “In the basement of the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis you might find yourself transported to a different land. As you walk toward the Somali Museum of Minnesota, you might hear the joyful sounds of the jaandheer, a traditional dance from the Sanaag region of the Somali peninsula. To many listeners, particularly those from the Northern Somali region, the music says, Welcome home.

“On a recent day, a group of young Somali Minnesotans practiced the dance as their instructor replayed the past 30 seconds of music over and over until they got it right. The instructor, Abdurahman Muhumed, a young man with braided hair, had recently performed with the Somali Museum Dance Troupe  at the ‘Star of Unity’ concert at the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul. As a more experienced dancer, he was training the others as part of the troupe’s leadership training component. 

“A few days later, several members of the 20-member Somali Museum Dance Troupe –- Bashir Ismail, Ayan Furreh, Harun Mohammed and their coach, Mohamoud Osman Mohamed, who is also artistic director of the Somali Museum, talked about their work and their passion for celebrating Somali culture through dance. 

“Mohamoud helped found the Somali Museum Dance Troupe nearly 10 years ago to share his love of that culture and to elevate its artistic expression. His father, Osman Ali, had told him about the importance Somali performing arts held before that country’s long-raging civil war, and the two of them combined efforts to create the Somali Museum Dance Troupe. 

“In its early years, the troupe consisted of young recent immigrants who knew a lot of dances from back home and wanted to share those same dance styles,” and it has since grown to include many enthusiastic young people who have never known Somalia. For more about the dance troupe, click here.

The Sahan Journal has also covered what’s going on with a community leader my husband and I got to know when we lived in Minneapolis, Mohamed Wardere. Having once worked in community outreach for a US Senator, he is now “executive director of Hiddo Soor, a Somali nonprofit that hosts cultural events.” He said that “Somali business owners around the state, who sponsor the festivals, requested events in their towns so that their neighbors could understand their culture. 

“Wardere said when he began hosting cultural festivals, most attendees were members of the Somali community, but in recent years the wider community has participated in the festivities. Last year, about 4,000 people attended the festival in Plymouth, he said. 

“Wardere said he is excited that more people are learning about Somali history and gaining respect for his culture.” Mohamed was always good at sharing understanding of Somali culture.

Read the article by Yvette Higgins on the celebration of Somali independence, its “street festival in Minneapolis, a multiday soccer tournament, a concert at the Ordway, and festivals in Plymouth, Rochester, Owatonna and St. Cloud.” That story is here.

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Sufi Dervishes in Syria

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 5, 2025| 4 Comments »

Photo: Shirin Jaafari/The World.
Moayyed al-Kharrat, whose family has been performing the Sema in Syria for decades, described the dance as a sort of prayer.

As recently as June, when radio show The World filed this story about whirling dervishes, hope seemed to be the main emotion in Syria. The brutal Assad regime was gone, and victorious rebels were promising diversity and justice. Today sectarian violence has erupted.

But I think there are still reasons for hope — and for diverse groups to flourish. Like the Sufis.

This post shares what Shirin Jaafari wrote about the famous Sufi dance and the performers’ hopes.

“In the heart of Damascus, a group of men and boys dressed in long, white robes and tall headpieces stood in a semicircle. Their chants filled the courtyard of a traditional Damascene house that was turned into a hotel. …

“As the melody built up momentum, several of the men and boys began to twirl, their white skirts flaring out like blooming flowers. The dancers’ synchronized rotations make them trance-like, seemingly detached from everything around them.

“The al-Kharrats say they are the only family in Syria who have continuously performed the Sema, as the dance is known. It was introduced to the country in the 14th century and first popularized by the Persian poet Rumi in Turkey.

“Through years of war, repression and threats from extremist groups like ISIS, the family has still been able to pass the ritual on to younger generations.

Now, they say they are hopeful about new opportunities under the new Syrian government.

“Moayyed al-Kharrat, one of the two brothers who oversee the dancers, said their great-uncle learned the Sufi dance and taught it to others in the family. …

“ ‘The spinning represents pilgrims moving around the Kaaba in Mecca,’ Kharrat said, referring to the ritual performed by Muslims. ‘It’s also reminiscent of the planets moving around the sun.’

‘During the ritual, one hand is extended upward, palm facing the sky, he went on to explain, which symbolizes receiving divine blessing. The other one is turned downward, palm facing the earth, to pass the blessings to the world.

“Mahmoud al-Kharrat learned the Sema when he was 4 years old. He said that keeping the tradition alive in Syria hasn’t been easy.

“Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam focused on spiritual closeness to God. It has long faced suspicion from extremists, who consider Sufis to be non-believers. ISIS fighters have attacked their shrines and killed and imprisoned the descendants of the saints and personalities they represent.

“The regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad didn’t prohibit the Kharrat family from performing, the brothers said. But it did make it difficult for them to get the right permissions. The Assad regime used the arts to paint a more positive image of itself to the world, they explained. For example, when foreign dignitaries visited, they asked the family to perform for them.

“As the civil war ravaged Syria, countries stopped issuing visas for Syrians to travel. The family found it almost impossible to take its performances to international audiences as it had done before. One time, they managed to go to the US, but upon returning, Mahmoud was questioned by a border guard about why he hadn’t yet completed Syria’s mandatory military service, which all men had to complete at the time.

“Mahmoud estimated that he ended up paying around $7,000 in bribes so he wouldn’t get sent to the frontlines. …

“At the Damascene home-turned-hotel, the first part of the performance wrapped up, and the two brothers discussed with the younger members what they could improve on. …

“After some discussion, they got ready for the next part of the performance — their long, white skirts sweeping the ground as they moved around.

“ ‘The best way to keep this tradition alive,’ Moayad al-Kharrat explained, ‘is to pass it on to the younger generation [making] sure they learn the chants, and the full meaning of what this dance represents.’ …

“ ‘When I dance, I feel like I’m flying,’ Mahmoud added. ‘I feel like a child who has just been given a birthday present.’ ”

More at The World, here.

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Where Flamenco Flourishes in the US

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 30, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: Thais Coy/American Flamenco Repertory Company.
Yjastros, the American Flamenco Repertory Company, performing in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Nowadays people don’t seem to talk much about catharsis in theater: the idea that in suffering along with the actors, the audience can feel a kind of cleansing or relief.

That is what you also get experiencing the controlled rage and sorrow of music like Edith Piaf’s, Portuguese fado, or Spanish flamenco.

Today, as I’m reading about flamenco flourishing in part of the US, I’m thinking what a gift it is to be able to convert rage and sorrow into something like peace.

John Burnett reports at National Public Radio (NPR) that the state of New Mexico is “a global center of flamenco — the passionate dance, song and music of the Roma people of southern Spain.

“The epicenter is Albuquerque. New Mexico’s largest city boasts a world-famous flamenco festival. … The University of New Mexico is the only American university that offers graduate and undergraduate Dance degrees with an emphasis in flamenco. The National Institute of Flamenco is home to a world-class repertory company, and a conservatory that teaches students as young as three, to young adults who want to be professional dancers.

“The popularity of flamenco has exploded in the last four decades. You can find its distinctive percussive footwork from Tokyo to Israel to Toronto. … But what’s different about flamenco in Nuevo Mexico is that it’s homegrown. New Mexico traces its deeply Hispanic identity to the arrival of Spanish settlers 400-plus years ago.

” ‘Here in New Mexico it’s got to sound like us,’ says Vicente Griego, a celebrated singer from northern New Mexico who specializes in cante jondo, the deep song of flamenco. ‘There’s other people who want to do flamenco exactly the way it’s been done in Spain. But what makes us really special here and what keeps us honest, is that we have our own history. We’ve had our own resistance, our own celebration, our own liberation.’

“Says Marisol Encinias, executive director of the National Institute of Flamenco: ‘I like to think that there’s something in our DNA that ties us to the antecedents of flamenco from way back.’ …

“Eva Encinias, Marisol’s mother, learned dance from her mother, Clarita, and is considered the grande dame of flamenco in Albuquerque.

” ‘Even though we present all of this very, very high-end flamenco, the rationale behind that is to inspire and cultivate young people,’ says Eva, sitting in the costume room of the National Institute of Flamenco that she founded 43 years ago. She’s surrounded by racks of extravagantly ruffled dresses. ‘We all started as children and we know the impact that flamenco had on us as young people.’

“Outreach is a huge part of their mission. Between Eva and her children, Marisol and Joaquin, they’ve taught thousands of flamenco students at the Institute and at UNM. …

” ‘We’re gonna clap along to the music, in 4/4 time, which means that we count 1-2-3-4,’ intones Sarah Ward, a Canadian who became enthralled with flamenco and now teaches. She’s leading a class of fourth-graders at the Taos Integrated School of the Arts. Fifteen kids happily stomp their sneakers to the count. …

“One of her bright-eyed students is 10-year-old Cypress Musialowski. ‘I feel an opportunity to let out anger,’ she says. ‘I really like stomping my feet. But I also feel like I can just flow and be me.’ …

Flamenco has been called performed aggression—the pounding wooden heels, the feral singing, the baroque guitarwork.

“The Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca defined duende, the spirit of flamenco, as ‘tragedy-inspired ecstasy.’ …

“And it’s really hard to learn, says Marisol Encinias, who is also an assistant professor of flamenco dance at UNM. ‘It’s a really, really challenging artform,’ she says. ‘I had a guitarist friend who said you spend your whole life trying to be mediocre.’

“Evelyn Mendoza, the 27-year-old education manager at the Institute, says, ‘I mean, you sweat your heart, soul, tears, blood and everything into any dance form that you do. … But flamenco is so different because it’s fierce.’ “

Read more at NPR, here. (Consider supporting this great public resource, here.)

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Preserving Dance in Africa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 3, 2025| 9 Comments »

Map: Maps of the World.
The National Ballet in the Central African Republic brings to life traditional dance forms from different ethnic groups across the country. 

In parts of Africa where colonialism glommed together disparate tribes with ancestral enmities, wars have continued off and on for decades. But the Central African Republic (CAR) is setting a different example, with the help of its national ballet company. The idea is to give all the CAR groups a moment in the sun by highlighting the dance traditions of each. The effort also brings people together in new ways.

In the following article, we learn about a number of ethnic dance groups, including the National Artistic Ensemble that performed recently at the Africa Day of School Feeding (ADSF) in Bouboui. [See the African Union site for an explanation of ADSF. Interesting.]

France24 reports: “The dancers shake their hips, kicking their feet to the beat of the age-old ‘dance of the caterpillars,’ typically performed in the south where the insects are gathered for food.

“Three times a week the National Ballet rehearses traditional dances of the many ethnic groups making up the Central African Republic.

” ‘The creations they ask of us are based on the particularities of each ethnicity. I’m Banda and I have to suggest dance steps from the Banda ethnic group,’ Sidoane Kolema, 43, said.

“They aim to preserve the heritage of the CAR, a mosaic of ethnic groups that is scarred by decades of conflict and instability and is among the world’s poorest countries.

“From behind the scenes, 26-year-old Intelligentsia Oualou began singing in Gbanu, the language of her native southwestern Ombella-M’poko region.

“To the jingle of bells and rhythmic thud of the drum and xylophone-like balafon, the spinning silhouettes of the other dancers soon appeared across the dilapidated stage, set up on waste ground in the capital Bangui.

” ‘All my relatives are artists and I’ve dreamed of being an artist too,’ said Oualou. She is one of 62 dancers in the National Artistic Ensemble, created by CAR President Faustin Archange Touadera in 2021.

” ‘Promoting our cultures means going to the hinterlands to find the different dance steps of the Central African Republic in order to create a show that is diverse,’ National Ballet choreographer Ludovic Mboumolomako, 55, said. He spent three weeks living among the Pygmies in their ancestral forests in the south in order to enrich his choreography with their dances, songs and ways of living. …

“The company is often called upon to perform the ancestral dances in public at political gatherings, inaugurations and official ceremonies. In front of officials or at festivals, they dance in costumes of raffia skirts topped with pearl belts and patterned wax-print fabrics.

” ‘We need to raise awareness among young people … by dancing the different dances of our different ethnic groups in front of everyone. Tomorrow, if we are no longer here, it will be up to them to take over,’ Kolema said.

“The dancers were even recently integrated into the civil service, just like the actors and musicians who also belong to the National Artistic Ensemble.

“One of the upsides is that the dancers ‘have not a subsidy, but a salary’ [Culture Minister Ngola Ramadan] said. …

“Kevin Bemon, 44, said he had been able to put his former ‘difficult’ life dancing at neighborhood wakes behind him, thanks to the monthly salary of [$124] – just over twice the minimum wage in the CAR. …

“For a decade until 2013, the CAR was wracked by civil wars and intercommunal conflict, and although the violence has lost intensity since 2018, tensions persist.

” ‘Traditional dance has brought us together. After the recent wars, different ethnic groups were divided. Thanks to dance, we’ve become children of the same family,’ Oualou said.”

Check out the great photos at France 24, here. No paywall.

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Using Ballet to Help Veterans

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Dina Litovsky.
Román Baca leads rehearsal on the deck of the Intrepid, the aircraft carrier turned museum on the Hudson River.

The wars that have been fought in my lifetime sometimes seem to have been necessary and inevitable. Most often, not. As the young people head off, I always think about how their lives will have been warped if they get back. It seems so wrong. And right now the services we’ve promised them are being slashed.

Fortunately, there are efforts at healing that forge ahead. One such program involves ballet.

Brian Seibert writes at the New York Times, “When Román Baca was serving as a Marine in Iraq in 2005, he didn’t tell many people what kind of work he had done before the war. He had tried that in boot camp, and it hadn’t gone well. So when his best friend in the platoon asked him why he seemed so interested in local dance practices, he hesitated before admitting the truth: He was a ballet dancer.

“Baca’s friend wasn’t bothered by the revelation. So Baca told him his crazy idea: to translate their wartime experiences into dance.

“Eventually, that crazy idea became Baca’s life. With his wife, Lisa Fitzgerald, he founded Exit12 Dance Company, which makes and performs works about military experience. What started as a way for Baca to deal with his trauma has expanded into a mission to help other veterans deal with theirs — through dance.

“In recent weeks, a group of veterans and family members of veterans, ranging in age and physical ability, has been gathering in the belly of the U.S.S. Intrepid, an aircraft carrier turned museum on the Hudson River. Using various improvisational exercises, they have been creating a dance work [to] perform on May 30 on the ship (on the flight deck, weather permitting). More important than that performance, though, is the process.

“Baca sees the workshops as a corrective for military training. ‘To make a person respond immediately to orders and commit acts of violence, military training changes your identity,’ he said. ‘It removes everything that defines a person’ — your clothing, your haircut — ‘and then it changes you through physical exercises, repetitive motion and powerful brain-body connections.’

“Baca, who has been leading these workshops since 2011, recalled a moment from one: Everett Cox, a Vietnam War veteran who had kept away from everything military for decades, responded to a prompt of action verbs by expertly stabbing and slashing with an invisible bayonet. His long-unused training was intact in muscle memory.

“Another time, Baca was choreographing a military exercise sequence and directed his dancers to yell ‘kill’ with every motion. When Fitzgerald questioned if that creative decision might have been a bit much, Baca explained that he was only being accurate: Coupling all actions with the word ‘kill’ was part of boot camp.

” ‘That’s absolutely needed when you are in uniform,’ he said. ‘But what do you do with that after you get home?’

“The workshops use physical exercises to help restore what Baca, borrowing a term from the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, called narrative identity. ‘You start to tell people who you are and parts of your story and then you listen to others do the same,’ he said.

“ ‘A lot of trauma survivors will say that you never fully heal,’ he added. But as evidence of how the process can work, he pointed to the experience of Cox, who returned from service in Vietnam feeling so guilty and ashamed that he did not consider himself a veteran. ‘I lost my mind in Vietnam’ is how Cox put it to me.

“For nearly 40 years, Cox, who took drugs and attempted suicide, tried to lock away what had happened. He was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic; one psychiatrist told him he was incurably insane. Then, in 2010, he attended a retreat for veterans at the Omega Institute, a holistic wellness center in the Hudson Valley. ‘It changed my life,’ he said. For the first time, he began to talk about his wartime experiences, and to write about them, and to cry. …

“ ‘If you’re holding a war in, it takes a lot of energy,’ he said. ‘And if you want to loosen that up, it also takes a lot of energy.’ ”

I so admire Baca, who against what seems to me like very long odds, keeps working hard to bring these damaged veterans back to life.

More at the Times, here.

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Still Choreographing at 91

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 23, 2025| 8 Comments »

Photo: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian.
Australian choreographer Elizabeth Cameron Dalman at her property in Bungendore, just outside Canberra. “I’d always been inspired by nature, which I imagined as I was performing.”

As an older citizen who thinks backing up in a parking lot is living life on the edge, I can never resist a story about elderly people who ignore aging.

Steve Dow at the Guardian wrote recently about a dancer in Australia.

“At 91, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman dances in nature at her bushland retreat outside Canberra, Mirramu Creative Arts Centre, surrounded by writers, singers and visual artists. … ‘So many people bring up this age thing,’ she says, ‘and my reply is that in dance we are ageless.’

“A contemporary dance pioneer in Australia, Dalman has just seen the final performance of one of her ‘great inspirations’ and occasional collaborators, dancer Eileen Kramer, in a filmed component of the dance work ‘Afterworld,’ part of Sydney festival. Kramer died in November at 110. ‘I’m going to live to that age,’ Dalman chuckles.

“In Adelaide in 1965, Dalman co-created Australian Dance Theatre, running the company for a decade, confounding the era’s prejudice against modern dance and women artistic directors. …

“She [likes to] talk about what feeds longevity, pointing to medical research showing the health and mobility benefits of dancing for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. ‘It’s not just pure exercise, you are adding creative activity,’ she says. ‘You’re engaging the left and right side of the brain.’ …

“Dalman has been consulting with ADT’s current artistic director, Daniel Riley, on the company’s 60th anniversary production ‘A Quiet Language.’ … The show, created by Riley, is billed as an examination of legacy, ‘transmuting the rebellious energy of the company’s early days into an electric new era.’

“Over the past decade, Dalman herself has graced international stages, notably touring for four years as part of the Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan’s critically acclaimed ‘Swan Lake/Loch na hEala,’ which transposed the classical ballet to the Irish midlands. When Keegan-Dolan posted an international callout for a woman aged 60 with long white hair to play the story’s cranky, arthritic matriarch, Dalman – 82 at the time – emailed saying she had the requisite long white hair. …

“Dalman has always been determined to dance. … She enrolled in dance class at three, learning both classical ballet and modern. Later, she began an arts degree at the University of Adelaide. …

“In 1957, aged 23, Dalman paid her way to London with the hope of launching a dance career. There, she saw a life-changing performance by the Mexican choreographer José Limón. ‘He touched my soul. I thought, “Oh wow, that’s how I want to dance,” ‘ she recalls. In 1960-61 she studied at the Folkwang school in Essen, Germany, where her classmates included Pina Bausch: ‘She was amazing, a technical whiz.’

“In Germany, Dalman met the Colombian American choreographer Eleo Pomare, who rose to prominence in the civil rights era. She created works with Pomare’s company from 1961 to 1963, living in Amsterdam with him and four other dancers. Pomare later remarked that Dalman danced ‘as if she swallows the heat and you feel that the heat is burning from the inside out.’ …

“Dalman returned to Australia in late 1963, and performed in the artist Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski’s experimental theatre show ‘Sound and Image’ at the 1964 Adelaide festival. It inspired her to open a dance school, and in 1965 she took her students on a regional tour, alongside dancers from Royal Ballet alumnus Leslie White’s Adelaide academy.

“Buoyed up by the tour’s success, Dalman and White set up Australian Dance Theatre, but the going was financially tough, and White left in 1967. Dalman put Australian Dance Theatre forward to perform in the 1968 Adelaide festival, but when it turned down her request for financial support she instead bought some half-price cruise ship tickets and took the troupe on its first international tour, sailing to the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy.

“Back home, Dalman faced discrimination because of her gender: ‘I felt the battle, I had to keep proving myself. Even once we got a little bit of funding later, in 1973, and I’d been running the company since 1965, never in the red, this board member, a man, said, “Oh we have to do something about the finances, they haven’t been run correctly.” Then he took us into the red the next year.’

“Dalman remained artistic director until 1975. Then, having split with her husband, she and [their son] Andreas moved to Ventimiglia, a seaside town in northern Italy. … She founded a dance school and a youth dance theatre there in 1976, and it became ‘a place of healing.’

“In 1986, on a visit home to Australia, Dalman met another mature artist, who became an inspiration: the Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, then almost 80. … A decade later, Dalman and Andreas visited Ohno – who was still dancing, and preparing to tour the US – at his Yokohama home. ‘He said, “Oh Elizabeth, it’s so good to talk to a senior, mature artist.” ‘ Dalman, then 60, had been contemplating ending her career. ‘When I met him, I realized I had to keep going.’

“In 1989, Dalman bought a 40-hectare property at Bungendore, near Weereewa/Lake George, outside Canberra. The bush reminded her of Italy, dancing among the olive groves or by the river. She established Mirramu Creative Arts Centre there the same year, followed by Mirramu Dance Company in 2002. …

“ ‘It was hard leaving Adelaide because that was my home, but the pull of this place, the land and the lake, is very powerful.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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A Hot Dance Scene in Brazil

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 4, 2025| 1 Comment »

Photo: María Magdalena Arréllaga.
“People dance into the wee hours,” writes the New York Times. “For many young Brazilians, the charme scene has become a symbol of Black identity and culture unique to Rio’s working-class areas.”

I’m always grateful when the mainstream media digs into an aspect of another culture, something I know nothing about. Today we learn of a vibrant scene that has thrilled thousands of people since the 1970s. And what did I know about it before? Nothing.

Ana Ionova writes at the New York Times, “Trucks, buses and cars rumbled overhead, drowning out Marcus Azevedo’s voice. In the distance, sirens blared and exhaust pipes backfired. From under a highway overpass, Mr. Azevedo, a dance teacher, shouted over the noise, ‘Five, six, seven, eight!’

“He hit play on his phone, and the first song started blasting from a pair of crackling speakers. Six rows of dancers began shuffling, twisting and popping their hips in unison. The playlist? All R&B classics. …

“The dance routine wouldn’t have been out of place in New York City or Atlanta or Los Angeles. But we were on the decaying fringes of Rio de Janeiro, a metropolis better known for samba. And this dance is called charme, a style born here in the 1970s as an ode to American soul, funk and, later, R&B.

“This spot, in the working-class suburb of Madureira, has become a temple for lovers of charme over the decades. By day, it’s where many hone their moves. Once mastered, the steps are flaunted at nighttime parties known as ‘baile charme.’

“ ‘This is a magical place,’ said Mr. Azevedo, 46, who began dancing charme — Portuguese for charm — when he was 11 and now leads a dance company focused on the style. ‘There is something spiritual, an energy that can only be found here.’

“But the old-school R&B tracks shouldn’t fool anyone into thinking that this is a nostalgic crowd yearning for a throwback. This hotbed of charme is attracting an increasingly younger crop of dancers, who are keeping the scene alive — and transforming it in surprising ways.

“On a recent muggy Saturday morning, a few dozen people — from restless children and lanky teenagers to men and women in their 50s and 60s — flocked to the shady overpass. They were there for a class led by Mr. Azevedo and three other instructors, all part of a program meant to introduce charme to more people.

“A small group practiced steps before class started. ‘It’s not hard — a little step here, a little step there,’ said Juliana Bittencourt, 30, an administrative assistant, showing a fellow student how it’s done. ‘Charme is medicine, it has the power to cure anything.’

“Geovana Cruz, 20, a bank teller who had come from São Paulo by bus that morning, excitedly stepped into the front row of dancers.

“ ‘It’s addictive,’ said Ms. Cruz, who comes nearly every week and whose charme dance routines on TikTok draw thousands of likes. …

“ ‘Charme is not just music,’ said Larissa Rodrigues Martins, 25, a schoolteacher. ‘It’s a place where we share and learn from each other — not just about steps, but also about life.’ …

“The birth of charme is rooted in the influx of Black music and culture from the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. At a time when Rio’s far-flung, impoverished outskirts offered young people few sources of pride or identity, the rhythm and style of American artists like James Brown and Stevie Wonder emerged as an inspiration.

“One night in 1980, a D.J. named Corello was working at a club and decided to mix in some Marvin Gaye. ‘Now it’s time for a little charme, slow your body down,’ he called out. The term stuck and came to define the homegrown urban dance movement.

“After many Black social clubs went out of business in the 1990s, charme lovers moved the party to the nearby Madureira overpass, where they could dance undisturbed. …

“The movements that define the dance are at once familiar to urban street dancers yet uniquely ‘Carioca,’ as anyone or anything from Rio de Janeiro is known. The swings carry a hint of bossa nova’s sway; the two-steps have a distinct samba flavor; and the bold hip bounces channel Brazilian funk. …

“For many younger people, the charme scene under the overpass has increasingly become a symbol of Black identity and culture that is unique to Rio’s working-class neighborhoods.

“ ‘This is our ancestry,’ Ms. Martins said. ‘The previous generation showed us this space where we can express ourselves.’

“During the nighttime partying, older revelers mostly hung back. They swayed, stepped and turned with more subtle, sensual movements. ‘We learn from the new kids, and they learn from us,’ said Bruno Oliveira, 44, a clothes salesman wearing a bejeweled cap. ‘It’s love, it’s peace.’ ”

More at the Times, here. Great pictures, especially the videos.

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Dance Legend Alvin Ailey

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photo: John Lindquist/Harvard Theatre Collection.
Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey.

I have a special memory of dance icon Alvin Ailey, who early in his career came to Spring Valley (NY) High School to perform and offer a class. I jumped at the chance. I remember he gave me a moment of personal attention when I was trying to learn a step.

New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art also has memories. 

Rebecca Schiffman writes at Hyperallergic, “Alvin Ailey’s performing arts transcend the traditional boundaries of dance. The seminal dancer and choreographer created a living history of movement imbued with cultural memory and personal expression. Through his choreography and his company’s performances, he seamlessly interwove narratives of Black, American, and queer identity, exploring themes of struggle and liberation in performances that were both physically dynamic and deeply rooted in the human condition. His expansive vision of what modern dance could be — flexible, inclusive, and multidisciplinary — makes his work an ideal centerpiece for the Whitney’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to a performing artist.

“Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art blends performance footage, recorded interviews, and notes from the late choreographer’s personal archive with paintings, sculptures, music, and installations by more than 80 artists. As Ailey himself reflected in a 1984 interview, ‘There was movement, there was color, there was painting, there was sculpture, and there was the putting it all together.’ This holistic approach allows the two sides of the exhibition — Ailey’s life and work alongside art that relates to or is inspired by him — to coexist harmoniously, each enriching the other to compose a more complete story of American culture.

“Among the exhibition’s direct references to dance are Barkley Hendricks’s painting ‘Dancer’ (1977), depicting a Black woman in a white leotard set against a white ground; Senga Nengudi’s sculpture ‘R.S.V.P.’ (1975), evoking a body or body parts through stretched nylon pantyhose and sand; and two paintings of dancers in rehearsal by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, one of which was created specifically for this exhibition.

“These works are complemented by an 18-screen video projection of various Ailey performances, played on a loop throughout the space and accompanied by scores from Josh Begley and Kya Lou. Another section hosts videos of musicians, dancers, and choreographers who influenced Ailey, including Katherine Dunham, Maya Deren, Carmen de Lavallade, and Duke Ellington. 

“But the real lure of the exhibition lies in the opportunity to connect with the storied Alvin Ailey on a personal level through his notebooks, journal entries, letters, and other ephemera meticulously organized alongside corresponding artworks. Ailey was a scrupulous note taker, chronicling his life in painstaking detail. On Monday, September 20, 1982, he works through his daily minutiae: ‘Woke up at 10:30, call from Atlanta, watched soaps and drank tea, called Ernie at 12:13, Sylvia called at 2:00 to talk about …’ But in other entries, such as one from 1980 that states ‘nervous breakdown, 7 wks in hosp,’ Ailey’s brevity highlights the overwhelming weight of the experience of a mental breakdown, a reality that might be too heavy or painful to unpack in words. Aptly placed next to this entry is Rashid Johnson’s ‘Anxious Men’ (2016), a drawn alter-ego of the artist’s own anxieties.

“Born in 1931 into a lineage of sharecroppers in rural Texas at the height of the Great Depression, Ailey was raised by his mother after his father abandoned them. Constantly searching for work, she moved them from town to town; at one point, when Ailey was just five, he helped her pick cotton. This upbringing, steeped in the struggles of Southern Black life and the spiritual grounding of the church, profoundly shaped his most iconic work, Revelations.

“Drawing from the gospel, blues, and spirituality that surrounded him as a child, he transformed these memories into a montage of pain, hope, and redemption. Works like John Bigger’s portrait of a weary yet resilient Black man, ‘Sharecropper’ (1945), characterized by its dark and somber tones, or ‘Haze’ (2023), Kevin Beasley’s landscape painting of a few trees against a yellow sky in the South, depict histories that visually resonate with Ailey’s creations.”

More at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall. The exhibition, running through February 9, is accompanied by a series of dance performances. Check the Whitney website for dates and times.

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Dance Style Born in South Africa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Ilan Godfrey.
Vusi Mdoyi, center, rehearsing this month with the Step Afrika! dance group at the Soweto Theater in Soweto Township in Johannesburg.

And speaking of other cultures, today’s story is from South Africa. It reminds me of how much I loved Miriam Makeba albums in the ’60s. And in the ’80s, a Xhosa-Zulu couple we knew (the husband was attending grad school at Harvard). I also remember young John (age 12 or so) auditioning for a kid show on Boston television with his pitch about ending apartheid. The American Black host doubted kids would be interested. Then there was the tour-de-force play Syringa Tree, Pamela Gien’s heartbreaking one-woman show about South Africa. It’s all coming back to me.

Now John Eligon reports at the New York Times on an intriguing dance story from South Africa.

He begins, “The young boy couldn’t resist the dance moves he saw being performed around him: the rapid foot taps, the ligament-spraining knee twists, the torso shimmies, all coming together in what some might describe as a sort of urban tap dance.

“Growing up in an impoverished Black township near Johannesburg in the 1980s, the boy, Vusi Mdoyi, loved watching his father dance with friends, in a style known as pantsula, in the dirt yards of their staid four-room bungalows. It was a sprinkle of joy in the dark days of apartheid.

“At about 7 years old, Mr. Mdoyi began mimicking the dance form. By 10, he was dancing in school festivals. By 14, he had created his own dance crew with neighborhood friends.

“Now 44, Mr. Mdoyi is a celebrated dancer and choreographer who has helped to achieve what felt unimaginable during apartheid: turning the street art of pantsula into a high art that attracts global praise, and audiences. …

“In 1998, while still a teenager, Mr. Mdoyi took part in workshops and shows put on by a dance company, Step Afrika!, which was co-founded in South Africa by C. Brian Williams, a Howard University graduate who had worked in the region. The company fused African American step dancing with traditional African dance.

“The interest that the American dancers showed in pantsula and other African dances helped to inject a sense of pride that their dances were meaningful, Mr. Mdoyi said. Under the white-led apartheid government, which had lost power only four years earlier, Africans were often made to feel ashamed of their own culture, he said. …

“In part with connections made through Step Afrika!, Mr. Mdoyi made his first overseas trip, to teach a pantsula workshop in Britain in 2001. The next year, he toured internationally with Via Katlehong, a pantsula dance company named after his native township. …

“Mr. Mdoyi’s latest work is in some ways a full circle moment to what originally vaulted his career from South African festivals to stages across the world: He choreographed and danced in a piece performed in Soweto this month, during the 30th anniversary celebration of Step Afrika!

“His new piece, titled, ‘The Tattered Soul of a Worker,’ tells the story of South African migrant workers who were forced to travel from their homes to find jobs, and it offers a critique of a capitalist system that has left the working class struggling.

“The dancers, clad in midcentury formal suits, dance at times with beer crates — it’s common in South Africa to see young people dancing pantsula with beer crates at traffic lights, seeking tips. …

“Black South Africans began to take up tap dancing in the 1960s after seeing it in American films, [Gregory Maqoma, an acclaimed South African dancer and choreographer who has mentored Mr. Mdoyi] said. That eventually evolved into pantsula, which started in townships where Black South Africans were forced to live.

“The apartheid regime largely restricted Black South Africans from freely traveling into cities. That left them with virtually no access to the theaters and studios where dance thrived as an art form. So for many Black South Africans, there was little expectation that dance could be anything more than a social activity. …

“As apartheid restrictions began to loosen in the late 1980s and early 1990s, opportunities increased for Black South Africans to access formal dance training and turn their talents into art.

“For Mr. Mdoyi, his focus on dancing as he grew up kept him away from the violence that consumed many Black communities while the government tried to maintain its fragile grip on power in the dying days of apartheid. Mr. Mdoyi said he connected with a popular street entertainer who danced pantsula and introduced him to the dance scene in nightclubs around Johannesburg. …

“The nightclubs were something of a dance academy for Mr. Mdoyi. He met street dancers from many different neighborhoods, each bringing their own styles, techniques and approaches. …

“Mr. Mdoyi’s dance productions can come across as stage plays, with elaborate costuming, soundtracks and even dialogues that tell a story beyond the dance moves themselves. He plays with genres and moods.

“In a performance called ‘Footnotes,’ Mr. Mdoyi and other dancers lay a soundtrack with typewriters, typing eviction notices. The piece grows angry and frantic as disgusted shouts from tenants boom over loudspeakers. …

“In 1998, Mr. Mdoyi won an award at a national dance festival for the first time, and the festival director connected him with Jackie Semela, who had established the Soweto Dance Theater, a company based in the nation’s largest township. Mr. Semela helped to start Step Afrika!, which in 1994 held its first festival, in Soweto, only months after South Africans elected Nelson Mandela president in the country’s first democratic election.

“Under Mr. Semela’s tutelage, Mr. Mdoyi not only honed his craft as a dancer and found a springboard to perform and choreograph pieces internationally, but he also learned the business side of the profession. He now has two companies dedicated to creating pantsula shows and teaching the dance.”

Read more and see cool videos of the dances at the Times, here.

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He Learned Dance Moves from a Soldier

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 18, 2024| 2 Comments »

Photo: Battery Dance.
Hussein Smko, a mostly self-taught Kurdish dancer/choreographer whose talent was spotted by Battery Dance over social media in 2014, inspring the company to give him training over Skype.

I love stories of surprising personal journeys, like the one today about a Kurdish boy whose admiration for a soldier’s hiphop move started him on a road to a dance career in the US.

Here’s Brian Schaefer at the New York Times . “When Hussein Smko was 9, the American military arrived in his hometown, Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. It was 2003, and Smko, already a survivor of the Kurdish civil war, would chase the American Humvees with other kids. One day a soldier beckoned him over and demonstrated a simple, beguiling gesture: He held out a straight arm then made it ripple like water, a classic hip-hop move.

“ ‘I thought it was like a big sparkle,’ Smko, 30, said in an interview. ‘And I was like, How could you break your bones like that?’

“That brief encounter loomed large for Smko, starting him on an unlikely dance journey that eventually brought him to a small, sun-dappled theater in Tarrytown, N.Y., where he was rehearsing with the Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg last week: the dance they were preparing, ‘On the Nature of Rabbits. …

“Smko’s path to this moment has been twisting and at times precarious. After his encounter with that liquid-armed soldier, he immersed himself in hip-hop dance, learning Michael Jackson routines through pirated music videos. Finding outlets for dance was difficult. … He was teased and called gay. But he persevered, and at 13 he started the Street Wolves, a hip-hop troupe that helped spread the form in Kurdistan.

“His pursuit of dance brought him to workshops offered by American Voices, a cultural exchange program affiliated with the United States Department of State. That led to a two-month tour of several East Coast cities, including Niagara Falls, N.Y., where he met his future wife, a U.S. citizen. After the tour, he moved in with her, then brought her to Kurdistan in 2013. The next year, ISIS laid siege to the region.

“Smko’s wife returned to the U.S. to give birth to their daughter while he stayed and prepared to fight. But a relative dissuaded him, which sparked a realization.

“ ‘I decided then that I want to fight through art,’ he said. … He applied for a green card and moved to Niagara Falls in 2015. The next summer, he was contacted by Jonathan Hollander, the founder and director of Battery Dance, a New York company that had briefly trained Smko on Skype years earlier. …

“The company quickly absorbed him into its classes and rehearsals, and suddenly Smko was dancing with trained professionals. ‘Hussein came up to that level,’ Hollander said. ‘It was just a miracle.’

“[In] 2020, he found himself at a crossroads. He worked for the Muslim American Leadership Alliance, and at a hotel front desk. He and his wife separated. He went back to Erbil to see his family, his first visit in seven years.

“His prospects improved in 2022, when he was introduced to the dancer and filmmaker Sasha Korbut and cast in the short film Incomplete, alongside Lidberg. ‘Our energies were synced up,’ Lidberg said of working with Smko. ‘It was the most natural thing.’

“That chemistry inspired Lidberg to include Smko in the development of ‘Rabbits.’ … Smko’s contribution to the process proved invaluable. Lidberg, who is used to working with polished, formally trained dancers, appreciated Smko’s raw physicality and unaffected vitality. …

“In 2019, he founded a company, Project Tag, that has shown work at the Battery Dance Festival and other small performance platforms. It is ‘a goal for me to speak about my background and my history.’ “

More at the Times, here.

I liked how Battery Dance described its original connection with the dancer: “Hussein Smko was the Adel Euro Fellow from 2016-2020.  A self-trained Kurdish dancer/choreographer whose talent was spotted by Battery Dance over social media in the summer of 2014, he was subsequently trained via Skype from his home in Iraq connected with Battery Dance practitioners in their studios in New York City. He managed to get to the U.S. in early 2016 and was granted Permanent Resident Status.”

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Sign Language in Dance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 23, 2024| 1 Comment »

Photo: John Labarbera.
Company 360 Dance Theatre in the show Nine.

To follow up on my recent post about deaf actors performing for general audiences, I have a related story about the use of signing in dance. I always felt that watching signing was like watching dance.

Lauren Wingenroth writes at Dance Magazine, “For Deaf audiences, watching performances with traditional sign language interpretation can feel like watching a tennis match: Their focus has to toggle between whatever is happening onstage and the interpreter, often off to the side, who might be communicating what the music sounds like or what’s being said. That’s if the performance even has an interpreter, which all too often is not the case.

“But attend a Company 360 Dance Theatre performance and the tables are turned. The Fredericksburg, Virginia–based company, led by choreographer Bailey Anne Vincent, who is Deaf, incorporates American Sign Language into all its productions. ‘If you’re a Deaf person, you’re in on the story more than a hearing person,’ says Vincent.

“For Vincent, using ASL in her choreography — which might mean incorporating a sign to emphasize an emotion a character is feeling, or to communicate what a lyric is saying — is both an artistic choice and an accessibility-related one. Though her audience is mostly hearing, ‘I still try to approach all our shows assuming there might be someone who is Deaf in the audience,’ she says. But it’s also just a natural extension of the fact that ASL is Vincent’s preferred language. ‘When I choreograph, the way that my mind thinks is in my own language,’ she says. …

“Deaf actress and dancer Alexandria Wailes feels similarly. ‘Dance and using ASL are both so embedded in who I am, as part of my identity,’ says Wailes through an interpreter. ‘I can’t really separate one from the other.’ …

“To get a sense of the deepening relationship between dance and ASL, look at choreographer and performer Brandon Kazen-Maddox’s career thus far. A GODA (grandchild of Deaf adults) and native ASL signer, Kazen-Maddox was long one of the New York City performing arts scene’s go-to interpreters, a reliable presence at performances, talkbacks, and more.

“But in 2019, choreographer Kayla Hamilton asked Kazen-Maddox to join her New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks piece not as an interpreter but as an artist. ‘She asked me to represent all sounds in sign language, and also use my body as a dancer,’ says Kazen-Maddox. ‘It was the most mind-shifting thing for me.’ …

“The experience was the beginning of a shift in Kazen-Maddox’s career, away from simply facilitating communication between­ Deaf and hearing individuals as an interpreter­ and towards an emerging genre Kazen-Maddox calls ‘American Sign Language dance theater.’ …

“Always key to this work, says Wailes: Deaf or Hard of Hearing performers who are ‘bilingual’ in dance and ASL. ‘If you’re trying to be more inclusive, great,’ she says. ‘Who are the people who are onstage? What are their lived experiences and how does this reveal itself­ in the work?’ …

“Until recently, Betsy Quillen experienced performances for Deaf audiences and hearing audiences separately. ‘It’s one or the other — it’s very isolated,’ says Quillen, who is a Hard of Hearing actor and theater director. …

“So when choreographer William Smith asked Quillen to collaborate with him on a piece for Roanoke Ballet Theatre that incorporated sign language, they had a clear goal: to make something that both Deaf and hearing audiences could understand and enjoy.

“ ‘My specific role was making sure that Deaf eyes would understand it, and that we were making our Deaf audiences feel welcomed and included and respected,’ says Quillen. ‘But we also made sure to show our hearing audience that this piece is made even more beautiful because we’ve included the Deaf audiences — that all of this ASL in every part of the production is enhancing the experience for everybody in the audience.’ “

More at Dance Magazine, here.

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Police Department Dancers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2024| 5 Comments »

Photo: NYPD Dance Team via WYRK.
People of good will may disagree on whether recreation for stressed police officers is money well spent.

Controversy over the New York Police Department has broken out. But it’s not about the usual law enforcement complaints (that they’re not hard enough on crime; that they’re too hard). It’s about the dance team.

Maria Cramer has background at the New York Times, “Officer Lauren Pagán looked at the line of dancers in the overheated cafeteria at a Queens high school on a recent Monday night and frowned. They were gyrating through moves choreographed to ‘Mamacita,’ a pulsating, Reggaeton-inflected song by the Black Eyed Peas and Ozuna. …

“The seven-officer team has mastered hip-hop and salsa and is playing around with bachata and bhangra, the fast-paced, energetic movements drawn from the traditional folk dance of India’s Punjab region. The group is figuring out how to fold in step and pom, where dancers wave pompons while synchronizing their moves.

“But what they really need is recruits to fill out a robust, diverse roster of at least two dozen dancers who can travel and compete against other groups, ideally other officers (although they would be happy to dance off against paramedics and firefighters).

“The dance team, which was formed in 2022, is among about four dozen competitive groups within the department that include traditionally macho squads like N.Y.P.D. Paint Ball, the N.Y.P.D. Rugby Football Club and the N.Y.P.D. Pistol Team.

“Department employees have been branching out. There is a chess club, yoga is popular and there is interest in starting a reading group and even a knitting circle, said Inspector Mark Wachter, a commanding officer with the department’s health and wellness unit, which approves applications. Dance team members hope that more of their brothers in blue will find the rhythm within. …

“In September, on the department’s Fraternal Day, when all of the clubs sought recruits at the Police Academy, 33 people signed up to try out for the dance team, said [Officer Autumn-Raine Martinez, who works in crime analysis at the 108th Precinct and is the team’s president]. Three were men trying to sign up their daughters. …

“She suspects that men fear being mocked. The group’s original emblem — a teal silhouette of a lithe dancer mid-leap — did not help.

“ ‘They’re like fifth-graders,’ Officer Pagán said. ‘They saw a ballerina and they went, “Ew.” ‘ The team redesigned its emblem. …

“The groups’s schedule is intense, a tough sell for police officers who work long hours. The dancers rehearse twice a week for two hours. … They perform at parades, schools, neighborhood fairs and at halftime during games of other Police Department sports teams. The expectation is that members will make it to rehearsals and shows, Officer Pagán, 39, said. …

“Detective Jessica Gutierrez came to the practice at the school cafeteria while nursing a case of conjunctivitis. … Officer Martinez arrived after working 12 hours starting at 5 a.m. Sgt. Benely Santos was scheduled to work an overnight shift at the 111th Precinct after practice. …

“The women range in age — from 26 to 42 — and experience. Sergeant Santos was a novice when she joined. Officer Martinez, on the other hand, has been dancing since she was 4, but has been bedeviled by her height. As a girl, she tried out for the role of Nala in the Broadway cast of The Lion King, but was too tall to make the cut. Later, when she considered auditioning for the Rockettes as a teenager, she was unable to: At 5-foot-5, she was an inch shy of the minimum height requirement at the time.

“Officer Alyssa Blenk, 32, who danced competitively in high school and college, joined the team when she saw pictures of it on Instagram. Her desire to be part of a squad was especially strong following the stress she was feeling as a result of the pandemic and the protests that erupted in New York in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“ ‘I need to do this,’ she thought when she saw the Instagram posts.”

More at the Times, here. People of good will may disagree on whether recreation for stressed police forces is money well spent. What do you think? All I can say is I’d rather not have tense, strung-out officers answering a call.

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Guerilla Tango in Providence

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Kris Craig/The Providence Journal.
Guerrilla Tango on the Van Leeston Pedestrian Bridge over the Providence River in Rhode Island.

Do you love reading about new ways people find to have fun? You don’t always need to spend money for entertainment. Check out what Kris Craig wrote at the Providence Journal.

“In the last rays of a beautiful Sunday in September, Susan Davis of Providence Tango finds an open spot and wheels a small black speaker to a corner railing around a lower deck of the Michael Van Leesten Memorial pedestrian bridge. She starts the music, and with it begins an evening of Guerrilla Tango.

“Everything around the bridge ebbs and flows, with people enjoying the mild late-day weather. And then, like a mist coming off the Providence River, the music rises, a beacon to a small, selective population, drawing tango true believers onto the planks and into the evening. 

“This is Milonga, a tango dance party, social dancing that is all about connection and community.

“Davis, who organizes these summer-long monthly events, will tell you this tango is about feeling quiet and sensitive to your partner of the moment and the others around you.

“As dancers accumulate on the decks to the side of the bridge, faces beam. There are a few newcomers and out-of-towners, but these people are not strangers.

All are part of the small New England tango community, moved by digital bulletin boards and word-of-mouth to the Guerrilla Tango.

“On the wooden planks of the bridge, street shoes are swapped for shiny black patent leathers for men and ankle-strapped high heels or stilletos for women. Hints of piano, violin and the accordion-like bandoneon coax the arrivals to finish changing quickly.

“The dancers pair off on the fly with provisional partners and ease into the tempo, and the scene transforms. The smiles of greeting fall away and the couples become one, as if the closeness of torsos and the placement of hands – one near the middle of the back or shoulder, the other gripped lightly with their partner’s – complete a circuit and light a fire in a world unto itself, shared two by two but really by all.

“The impromptu embrace and collective grace of this fluid assembly speak of romance uncoupled, large and free, less amorous than artful. The love is of music and motion. Of life itself. …

“I move from spot to spot, photographing the dancers, making my way around a crowd of spectators on the walkway, and I catch the awe in their appreciative murmurs. 

“A pair of teenage girls laugh their way down the terraces of the bridge, placing hands to bodies, mimicking the dancers, and they move into the mix. I too feel the pull to join the magic, but there are no invites for dilettantes. Knowledge of tango is the price of admission, and unaware guests become meteors wreaking havoc in this synchronized universe. Among the group, some dancers may learn from this evening, but it’s not a dance class. 

“A series of three mostly traditional tangos ends, and the music shifts to a 30-second Cortina, a completely different style. The dancers seem to awaken from a meditative trance. The short respite affords them a glimpse of the banal world surrounding their own before each seeks yet another partner for the next series. Another chance to get lost in the tango.

More at ProJo, here. Catch it next year, tango lovers!

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