Feet, hands, right brain, left brain

This weekend’s performances contain 3 works, each with its emphasis being a part of our bodies. Steven McMahon tackles the mind and heart, basing his work on Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, MY STROKE OF INSIGHT, A NEUROSCIENTIST’s PERSONAL JOURNEY. Dr. Taylor’s stroke, and her ability to assess how she went through it and what she learned from it, inspired Steven to create a work about the duality of the human brain. He says that his piece is “a conversation between the heart and mind, or the body and soul.” He found, in his readings, things that were scientific , but also spiritual at the same time. I imagine that scientists must feel this way as they make discoveries as well. The largeness of creation, the wonder of the world, the complexity of all that is within us and around us, has to be so exciting!

Julia Adam’s piece is based on the hand. She has pulled from the writings of T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare, and Dr. Seuss, and is looking at what our hands do expressing stages of life. She added props to support her ideas, props that are extensions of our hands, and very symbolic. She even studied multiple hand games, and has created a very exciting, poignant, and fascinating works for us. I always find too , that Julia’s work has a particularly feminine sensibility in its awareness of relationships, rich and thoughtful. I wish that there were more women choreographing in the ballet world, and I wish that everyone had her openness and sensitivity.

Nicole Corea closes the program with a rousing work, having received the assignment of “feet” from me. She has some dear friends, South African gum boot dancers, whom she based her new work on. The reason the miners in South Africa were given boots was because the wonders of the mines did not want to drain the mines, so they just gave the workers boots. This in itself is enough to break your heart, but it reminded Nicole of the spirits of her South African friends, and how much they have risen through in their culture. She speaks about how joyous their dispositions can be. “The South Africans I know will dance anywhere, even in their kitchens!”

Feet, hands, right brain/left brain….all moving within us while we spend our days in this life together. Something else joyful to investigate and celebrate. Hope to see you this weekend!

Isn't the human body miraculous?

Even more astounding is what we’ve learned about our bodies in the last 100 years, particularly through scientific discovery. While scientists continue to reveal amazing details about our bodies, artists have been using the body, or images of the body, to convey the many events, questions and mysteries within us. Scientists and artists alike tackle ideas with exploration and discoveries, and in Connections: Body and Soul you are watching some of that exploration.

Steven McMahon’s piece took its base from a book by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. Dr. Taylor’s stroke, which occurred when she was only 37, and her subsequent journey through recovery, inspired Steven to create a work about the dualityof the human brain, in which each hemisphere has a different priority, or motivation. Steven explores what those hemispheres would look like in an unfolding dance work. The evolution of Julia Adam’s piece stems mainly from a documentary on PBS about 9/11. The commentator wondered about the people jumping out of the towers, holding hands. Were these acts of great love or great desperation, or both? At some point soon after, Julia and I talked about all the things we do with our hands and agreed it would be important to make a work about that someday. Finally, we are able to do it and the hands of our joyous labors can be seen today.

When I asked Nicole Corea to concentrate her work on feet, she kept thinking about a South African dance company she knows well. This company does a lot of gumboot dancing, which derives from the fact that many South African miners had to wear boots because the mines they worked in filled with water. It reminded Nicole of the spirits of her South African friends, and how much they have risen through in their culture. Nicole also uses steps from a South African dance, the pantsula, which is more of a fun, loose dance that was made up in the streets. Dance is not something South Africans separate from their daily lives. When I did my research into many of these dances, I found that all kinds of groups had this connection to the earth, this way of speaking to the earth through our vibration, and then it climbs up through the rest of your body.

Feet, hands, right brain/left brain—all moving within us while we spend our days in this life together. It is truly something joyful to investigate and celebrate.

AbunDANCE

Dear Board and Patrons,

It was so rewarding, and so very interesting, to be involved in preparing our AbunDANCE performances. Last week, I returned from giving the keynote speech with National Arts Strategies ' Russell Willis Taylor at the Dance NYC, and it gave me a different and enhanced perspective. Ballet Memphis is in such an interesting position now, becoming more and more known and respected for the real innovation we have brought to our art form and our deep connection with our community. There is an eager intimacy we acheive now, with our work , and our purpose as artists, and the dancers convey this so beautifully to our audience, bringing them into that same state of being. We all know we are doing something together , and that it is significant, and important, and with this show, it is so joyful!

Yesterday, I was profoundly moved by Petr Zahradnicek's (please check spelling) to the powerful choral piece of ???? Gorecki's BROAD WATERS. In the final movement, the stillness achieved on stage was the deep stillness I also found inside me because of the dance that unfolded, and the place of arrival was a perfect harmony of music, human beings, and continuity. Then, to see 4 different men rehearse the amazing solo TAKADEME, is to see our men take on vocabulary completely different than anything they have done before. And, the jubilant Trey McIntyre piece, SECOND BEFORE the GROUND , is like welcoming a best friend we haven't seen in awhile, and the smile of welcome is enormous!

And, there is the work that we commissioned Jane Comfort to choreograph and Kirk Whalum to create music for. This collaboration has been fascinating from the outset, and the results will be so rewarding! And, this is a work in which I think you will feel a particular loving presence. These two artists have lived this presence all through the collaboration, and I don't think I have ever worked with any two artists who are more wise, humble, and large -spirited. Especially lucky you are if you are coming opening night, because Kirk and 5 other musicians will play live, and in tandem with 60 gospel voices recorded by the Mount Olivet Baptist Choir (please get the name right from Kirk....and it also needs to get in the program.) If you can't come Feb. 27th, you will still be able to see this amazing dance journey to a great recording at the other performances. And remember, this is our opening in our new midtown home at the intimate and fantastic new Playhouse on the Square, and we perform Feb. 27th, 28th, March........(please fill in).

These are difficult times for many, many people. It is important to be involved in those things that remind us that we have the capacity to find and manifest joy, and let that joy inspire us to bring more of it to others in our world, however we are able. There is no more important thing that we as artists can do , and no more important thing for us to do for one another in our lives together on this earth. I hope you will be there with us, and share with us our profound belief that we all have an AbunDANCE of Joyful Noise to cherish and grow in our communities.

Come share our joy!

Dorothy

Where do you respond, from inside your body, when you find joy?

Do you take a breath and emit a squeal? A note of song? Perhaps accompanied with a jump, or a blissful fall to the floor with a grateful note of thanks?

There are certainly an infinite variety of ways we express our jubilation. But, who can argue that we take that first inhalation while we are becoming aware of the news, the thought, the imagined picture? And doesn't it come back out, almost always, with sound and movement?

In this season's AbunDANCE, we are presenting work that was choreographed as a response to the joyful first intake of breath, coming back out as a chant, or a song, or channeled into a wind instrument.

I first saw Robert Battle's Takademe when it was performed at Houston's Dance Salad the same year Ballet Memphis was the only American ballet company invited to appear. The solo is powerful and utterly physical yet has a humorous undercurrent. When modernist choreographer Jane Comfort and composer/performer Kirk Whalum collaborated on the work premiering at this show, what resulted was a pieces that follows a person's struggle to find their way to a joyful elevation. Broad Waters is the story of a community of people bound together by the river they live near. And we're pleased to once again perform Trey McIntyre's Second Before the Ground.

Whatever brings you joy in life, find it, embrace it and watch it flourish.

Prestigious National Grant Awarded to Ballet Memphis

When New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced that its National Dance Project (NDP) has awarded $669,400 in Production Grants to support the development of new dance works during the 2009-2010 seasons, there was a joyous surprise in our studios. Twenty-one contemporary dance artists and companies—many of the largest, well-known national and international companies among them—will receive NDP Production Grants, and Ballet Memphis is proud to be on that list. Jane Forde, NDP Manager, could see in the various companies an aspect that is very important to Ballet Memphis, and that is an attempt to bridge cultures and create work that will truly engage communities across the United States.

Ballet Memphis' grant will go to fund a new work by choreographer Jane Comfort. Jane Comfort’s ballet, set to a score by Kirk Whalum, is a highly structured, abstract dance that blends classical ballet with contact and modern dance’s sensibility. Known in the business as Whitney Houston’s “sax guy,” the eight-time Grammy nominated African American musician Whalum has composed a score firmly rooted in the gospel tradition. Presented in an evening of mixed repertoire, the ballet celebrates the joy that is gospel: the ability to maintain an utterly enthusiastic and positive spirit in the face of dire circumstances and conditions.

The new work will premiere at this season's AbunDANCE: Joyful Noise, the premiere of Ballet Memphis in their new Midtown home in Playhouse on the Square. Once developed, the works will be available for national touring activity during the 2010-2011 or 2011-2012 performance seasons.

NEFA's National Dance Project Production and Touring grants are generously supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

Score one for the little guys!

Putting Down Roots On Stage

A writer from a publication asked this week, "What’s a good example of a past Ballet Memphis piece that was based on Memphis roots music?" Mixing local musical artists into our repertoire has always been important, especially given the strong nature of the Memphis music scene, but there is so much more to communicate. Ballet Memphis made international inroads with the Memphis Project Tour, interpreting the cultural legacy of the South. Performances have been set to the music of such Memphis-area recording artists as B.B. King, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. One of the strongest pieces in this repertoire is In Dreams which showcases the emotion and power of the voice of Roy Orbison, yet remains very "accessible" to people. Another popular piece of work we commissioned is Pork Songs, where the choreographer Trey McIntyre worked with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi to devise a collection of grainy old recordings about pork. The final selection ranged from "Chitlin's" by Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns, "I Like Pork" by Redd Foxx, "Porker Song" by The Bowmans and more.

But Ballet Memphis is not just about tapping into the culture of music, it's everything Southern roots. Perhaps the most powerful piece in this repertoire is Curtain of Green, choreographed by Julia Adam based on the Eudora Welty work. In just two scenes and with just three dancers the audience explores the inequitable balance of power in the south with both race and men and women. It's a rich, beautiful, simple, stark piece with dancers wearing hair down. Other pieces include I Am a Man, The Awakening and Two Jubilees which was based on a photograph of children dressed up for a cotton parade and tackled the separate celebrations experienced by whites and blacks at the time of high cotton.

Some might say these pieces could only be performed in the South, but Ballet Memphis sold out the Joyce Theatre in New York with these pieces on the bill and still answer requests for it as part of our touring packages. We're proud to give people all over the country a taste for the modern, creative power that can come out of a region with a deep and sometimes troubling history.

Come FUSE With Ballet Memphis

You know what it feels like to see that special someone, to drive a new car, score the winning goal or land the dream job—the things that really light your fuse? That make you explode with joy like fireworks over the Mississippi? Things that bring you such instant joy that you do your little happy dance when no one is looking? Well, we’re looking now, and we want you to rekindle that joy and share it with the world. 

Show us your happy dance, and you could win our Grand Prize—seeing your joyous inspiration become a professional Ballet Memphis dance work. The winning happy dance will premiere opening night at Playhouse on the Square, the new midtown home of Ballet Memphis. Don’t have a happy dance? Then show us what you think joy looks like in dance. You don’t have to be a pro—this dance is for everybody.

All you have to do is film your happy dance in three minutes or less, and submit it to Ballet Memphis through our YouTube group. Our panel will view your little piece of joy and select semifinalists. All semifinalists will have their submissions posted online for audience voting and win two tickets to the February premiere, Abundance: Joyful Noise. We’ll announce the finalists at FUSE—our September dance party and 23^rd season opener celebration. Then, each finalist will work with Ballet Memphis dancers who will turn your spark of joy into a new professional dance work. We’ll be watching the process, and will announce the overall winner at our November performance of Wizard of Oz. If you win, you’ll be watching Ballet Memphis perform your happy dance on opening night at Playhouse on the Square in February 2010.

FUSE is a series of community-wide events that celebrates the fusion of imagination, joy, and collaboration that dance ignites in all of us. So embrace that flicker of creativity that burns deep inside you! Start dancing, start filming, and start sharing your happy dance with us.

Find an entry form at balletmemphis.org/fuse.