Next Chapter - Asia

We're back in New York City with fond memories to savor. Sadly, Armenia was curtailed for us due to the state of emergency there. We hope to realize our plans to perform and teach in Yerevan at some more auspicious time and with better conditions for the Armenians!

We'll be setting up a new blog for our upcoming Asia Tour. Check back after April 11to see what we're doing in Busan and Seoul, South Korea, and to follow us as we dance our way across to Laos, Burma, Taiwan, Mongolia and China!

Full House at Musical Comedy Theater

The U.S. Ambassador and Azerbaijan's Minister of Culture were in the audience tonight at the Musical Comedy Theater to attend Battery Dance Company's performance. Equally exciting for us was the fact that at least one hundred dance students from all of the schools and studios where we taught were there to cheer us on. BDC members were a little surprised when the t.v. cameras appeared back stage at intermission asking for interviews. As always, the questioners rolled around to, "What is your impression of Azerbaijani dance? How do you like our country?" I guess that all of those years under the domination of the USSR have left Azeris a little insecure. After our wonderful interactions in the workshops, our dancers had plenty to say about the passion and determination of Azeri dancers -- too much in fact! I had to interrupt with a reminder that we had a second act to perform!

The dancers had made special request that we reverse the program order and finish with Shell Games. They said that it was hard to give Shells all the energy that they would like if they knew they had 2 more pieces to perform afterwards. I agreed, and saw tonight how right they were. Shells was INTENSE and brought the house down.

The miracle of tonight's show was that up until the day before, the stage floor had been totally undanceable. A huge turntable in the middle with a 1/2" gap would have been a beartrap for dancers' toes. With the Embassy's support, masonite was purchased, nailed down, and painted black; and though dancing on it was a bit of an obstacle course. Especially bumpy areas were chalked out so that dancers could avoid them, but when in the middle of a combination of movements, and blinded by the side lights, the dancers weren't looking down to study the map under their feet.

Barry Steele, our production designer, gets our blue ribbon of appreciation for having made the show look professional and polished despite the very rough conditions. A glass of wine and some pilaf at the excellent Mugam Restaurant afterwards helped restore Barry (just in time to crawl into bed before getting up at 5:30 a.m. to load out for the airport on our transit through Istanbul and home to New York. Fond memories are already being teased in our brains from the past weeks of touring Turkey and Azerbaijan!

Busy Battery in Baku

After three workshops (Baku School of Choreography, University of Arts & Culture, and Spider Dance Group) and the press conference yesterday, we all regrouped (and re-groomed) for a reception at the Ambassador Anne Derse's residence. The Ambassador herself was down to Earth and genuine and when she delivered her welcome speech in Azeri as well as English, we were suitably impressed.

This morning, I was asked to lead a workshop with the Neru Dance Group, 7 very talented and hard working dancers who had been mentored by a Russian teacher who closed shop some time ago. They showed me their work in the form of a techno ensemble dance, whipped to smooth finish, which they said was in the style of Brittney Spears. Boy am I glad that I invited them to show before we did the tell... I had misunderstood the culture journalist who raved about this group, and thought they were experimental and avant-garde. Not! But they were wonderfully open to anything I had to offer and jumped in to the experimentation and self-expression that I asked of them. After 90 minutes, they had concocted a very complex and engaging dance essay and we left with warm embraces and promises to meet after the show tonight so that I could introduce them to the BDC dancers.

Dancing Modern at Baku School of Choreography

Bafana, Robin and I headed off to Azerbaijan's premiere dance conservatory -- about which one can find many entries on the www from 1930's onward. We were surprised to find that our session started off with a press conference -- approximately 15 journalists and t.v. crews wanted to know what we thought about Azerbaijani dance, and whether there were any established ballet companies in the U.S.! After mentioning NYC Ballet and American Ballet Theater, and dropping Balanchine's name without any sign of recognition, I realized that we were "big news" and not the more marginal "cultural news" because certainly, these names would have been familiar to the cultural press. Bafana and Robin had prepared some material from Shell Games that involved various moves on the floor -- but they quickly modified their plan when we entered the large sunny studio and saw:
*20 young ballet students in traditional Russian ballet attire (black leotards and white tights for the girls; white t-shirts and black tights for the boys; and pointe shoes or ballet shoes on everybody
*the floor was out of a Degas painting, bleached unfinished boards that were probably perfect for ballet slippers but deadly for either bare feet or the floor moves that had been planned (splinters galore!)
*an audience of approximately 100 students and teachers from the school who burst into applause when we entered the room

Bafana began with a series of isolations with ribs and hips, gyrations that caused the students and audience to giggle uproariously. Phrases from the BDC repertoire were doled out in good measure and the kids did their best to keep up. Great fun was had by all and when I wandered out of the room at the end, I encountered students, partipants and audience alike, gleefully trying out the choreography in the hallways and staircases.

Azerbaijan: First Impressions

Arrival at the Baku Airport in the early morning hours of Monday: We certainly stood out on arrival at the airport from the all-male, black-coated fellow travelers who seemed part of a 1950's b/w movie. The straight-faced customs officials accepted our 8 passports and pre-prepared visa applications (thank you Jessica!), studied them along with the official Diplomatic Note from the U.S. Embassy (thank you Jonathan Henick, Dmitri and Gulara!), and without the slightest hint of a smile, said "no charge" waiving the very substantial visa fees. Wow! What a nice welcome! Seems that performing artists are respected and welcomed in this country. A bevy of reporters gathering in the afternoon on the rooftop of our hotel for a mini-press conference were interested to know if we were aware of Azerbaijan's rich background in folkloric dance and music (only superficially). They hoped that we would have the opportunity of interacting with young dancers and choreographers who had been turned on by the British dance company Random Dance via British Council-funded residencies (2) in 2003, and a Russian modern dance company that had temporarily set up a branch operation here in Baku, only to shut down a short while later. Tomorrow, we'll have that chance, with three workshops at the Baku School of Choreography, the University of Arts & Culture, and the Spider Dance Group. Check back for reports, and photos!

My Dinner with Serdil

The Goksu Restaurant is not a tourist haven; rather, it is the haunt of Serdil Gunay and his friends dating back to his college times through the present (he's not telling how many years that entails!) Serdil was one of the stellar team from the U.S. Embassy Ankara who guided us through our fascinating programs in Konya and Ankara (along with the brilliant Craig Dicker, and Aysegul Taskin who became a surrogate mother for all members of the company.) From the moment Serdil and I arrived at the Goksu, waiters, bus-boys and managers demonstrated their pleasure at seeing him by embracing and kissing him on both cheeks (brotherly love is fully practiced in Turkey). Starters were chosen from an array of delicious plates: celery remoulade; fava beans in a light tomato sauce; broccoli and carrot salad, steamed perfectly; and a huge artichoke heart in olive oil and lemon dressing. A string bean dish with sauteed shallots and garlic, with a touch of vinegar, accompanied the fish kebob that Serdil ordered. Has anyone heard of Goby fish? That's what it was, and the tender white chunks were grilled to perfection. Serdil put away a bottle of Arak softened with water; I stuck to the more mundane white wine. A pu-pu platter of scrumptious filo-nuts-honey pastries of different shapes and sizes, and another of perfectly ripe fresh fruit rounded out the feast, with Turkish coffee and brandy as the grand finale. I've characterized the food, but it was the conversation -- about life, head scarves, secularism, spirituality, art, money, values, dancers, sufis -- that was the main attraction. The brisk up hill walk in the cool night air was the perfect way to cap off an evening I'll never forget.

10th METU International Contemporary Dance Days

Yesterday was a whirlwind day. Our masterful production designer Barry Steele had a challenge to beat all challenges: how to load in, hang and focus lights, prepare a video projector, hang scenery and train a crew in less than 12 hours (it usually takes about 20 before the curtain is ready to part!) When I entered the theater with the dancers in the mid-afternoon, I heard Barry's usual refrain: "I'm not ready; take your time warming up." Bafana, the warm-hearted clown of our company, is also the person who offered to give the company class. When he asked the crew for a boom box, the answer was "no", uttered so automatically and dryly that we thought it was a joke. But not so: no boom box. So Bafana in his charming off-key voice, sang the company through their barre and other warm up exercises. Meanwhile, the university students who run the METU Festival .... OK, I will tell you what the acronym stands for: Middle Eastern Technical University (Turkey's MIT) ... were huddled in the lobby putting the finishing touches on the playbill for that evening's show. After having pitched in to help them, they were off on their labors of translating the whole thing into Turkish.
As is almost always the case, the playbill got done just before the audience arrived; and things on stage got done too; well, sort of. The hall of 800 seats was filled to about 2/3 capacity -- apparently twice as many as who had attended the previous night's show. There was surprisingly little diversity of age in the audience -- primarily college students and a smattering of teachers, Embassy staff and the odd senior dance fan!
Each of the four dances received warm applause, though Shell Games and I'll Take You There were the crowd favorites.
Our student guide Zeynap rushed the dancers into their clothes so that we could get to the nearby kabob house before closing. We downed our dinners in minutes flat and were back to the theater to pack up the costumes (still damp, a testament to the dancers' exertions). Several of the dancers had to wake up early the next morning to take the shuttle bus from our hotel back to the University campus in order to teach master classes. I hope that one of them will post a report soon on those activities: Instead of watching them myself, I spent most of the day in my room on the www figuring out our return flights, due to the cancellation of our program in Armenia caused by the unrest there.

Photos from Konya

We're already in Ankara, having driven in two van-loads from Konya yesterday. We bid a sad farewell in the early a.m. to Ahmet Calisir and our new friends at the Dedeman Hotel, stopped off at the Seljuk University to pack the costumes and load up. We're now at the Sheraton in Ankara, a stunning hotel located half-way up a steep rise, looking out on a bank of houses stretching up the hill. I finally have an image to share from the Sema ritual in Konya. The blur of color does do a good job of conveying the aura that we felt at the time. I've also attached a photo of Shell Games that likewise has vapor trails. Battery's show at the University was very well attended (95% full, I'd say) and very warmly received. I spoke to some students at intermission, those who weren't too shy to venture a conversation in English. They had some fascinating comments about Shell Games; in fact, I thought they "got" the piece astonishingly close to my ideas about it. Moonbeam was dedicated to Ahmet, who sat with his nephew, in the second row. He said that he was deeply touched and that I have a big heart. Nothing could have been more gratifying to me. The dancers did a sensational job and who can say enough about Barry? He was working in a brand new theater (ours was the first theatrical performance given there) in which none of the equipment had been tested and only a couple of trained hands. Two English majors from the university were pressed into service -- presumably as translators, but in reality, Barry put them to work as technicians, and wow, did they learn fast!
Tonight we stage our show at the METU Festival at METU (Middle Eastern Turkish University) here in Ankara. Gotta go!

Paul's journal entry

Ok, so to tell the truth, my first impressions of Turkey were nothing near what I first thought of the country before we left New York. Actually they have been blown out of the water.... I thought that we where going to have so many restrictions when coming here. I will admit I was quite naive, but everyone here has been so welcoming to who we are and the practice that we believe in, which is dance.

Of course when coming to a foreign land you think of what reactions others will have to you, and there are the strange stares and inquisitive looks. The thing is, these are all coming from a good place: the people here are just so curious to find out who we are and where we're from and what we're doing. I feel this country is going through a big change; they want to be accepted just like anyone else does, and I think this is partly why we are here...

Our lesson/improv with Ahmet and the Dervishes was very special...! We where taught some of their traditions and philosophies and afterwards, the points of turning. I mean I was only turning for maybe 5-10min and I felt like I could understand why they turn...after you let go of the world around you it feels like you're not turning anymore and you are one with yourself.

But after the class I was so unbelievably drained that I literally passed out for a few hours!!!

Besides that, I think that the work we could make together is something of great significance for both realms -- not just the fact of two countries, but that of two different beliefs. Even though we are not that different.

Paul Blackman,
Konya 2008.

Modern Dance meets Whirling Dervish

The ballroom at the Dedeman Hotel was once again equipped with a parquet floor, and we were joined for an afternoon session by Ahmet Calisir and his teenage son and nephew, both of whom are members of the whirling dervishes. The moment had arrived for us to stop theorizing and get down to the business of experimenting with the blending of movements and the sharing of space between these two very different worlds. The dancers gamely followed the basic directions: always turn counterclockwise; always travel around the floor in a counterclockwise direction; always keep your left leg straight, as the pivot point as you step across with the right leg, your paddle, and the swivel on both legs. When in repose, cross right arm over left; when whirling, gently unfold the arms so that the right hand is up, the hand slight cupped; and the left hand bent at the wrist facing downwards. Ahmet watched patiently, every so often giving a gentle correction. His verdict at the end was that the dancers were all very talented and could master the whirling technique in a month or so if they persisted on their own.

A beautiful moment occurred when Ahmet's cousin, dressed in the Sema costume (white long full skirt; white long sleeved tunic; brown felt cylindrical cap) whirled in the mddle of a tight circle made by the Battery Dancers who were improvising based on movements they had developed over the past several days. The simplicity of the juxtaposition was both striking and touching. Bafana, Robin, Paul, Sean, Adele and Mayuna all entered fully into the experience. Their facial expressions showed a tranquility (dare I say "spirituality"?) that seemed to be fed by the energy of the dervish in their midst. The harmony of those moments was complete.

Cultural Diplomacy - a word of thanks

It may seem unusual not to relegate credits to the small print at the bottom of the screen, but we feel particularly indebted to the agencies and individuals who believe in our mission of dance diplomacy and are serving as partners in this enterprise, so we're devoting a blog posting to them! Cheers and thanks to all of you!

Funding has been generously provided by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the State Department and the U.S. Embassies in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia; hospitality sponsorship from the Dedeman Hotel (Konya), Sheraton Hotel (Ankara) and Marriott Hotel (Yerevan), and local hosting by the Mevlana Order and the Seljuk University (Konya), METU University and Dance Festival (Ankara), Musical Comedy Theater (Baku) and Opera House (Yerevan)

We would like to further salute the vision and hard work performed by Stefanie Altman-Winans and Liza Davis at the Public Diplomacy Office of the Bureau of European Affairs; Kathryn Wainscott, Colombia Barrosse and Alina Romanowski of the ECA Bureau; and the wonderful teams of Foreign Service Officers in the field led by Elizabeth McKay and Craig Dicker in Ankara; Jonathan Henick in Baku; and Susan Bridenstine in Yerevan. Thus far, in Turkey, we have been magnificently supported by Ayesgul Taskin, Serdil and Serpil Taskin at each turn of the road.

Konya, Turkey - Land of Rumi

I must bundle three days into 1 posting -- what else can be done when our days end at 2 a.m. and the next morning call of the Muezzin is only hours away?
Let me introduce you to Ahmet Calisir -- he is the human portal through whom knowledge and experience of the whirling dervishes of Konya, the music and the philosophy of 12th Century Sufi poet Rumi may be accessed. My first meeting with Ahmet took place at his office in the center of this coal-smoke and fog filled city. Thank goodness for Aysegul Taskin, the cultural assistant from the U.S. Embassy Ankara who accompanied me to this meeting. Her seamless translation made communication with Ahmet fluid. Greetings with kisses on both cheeks are customary in this part of the world; and the exchange of gifts an essential politeness. A spice cake purchased on the run at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Aeroport was well received, but seemed a meager token next to the gorgeous 6-volume collection of Rumi's poetry that Ahmet proferred.

Exchanging information about our daughters (we both have two in their challenging teen years!) and our early introduction to music and philosophy (my concert-pianist mother allowed me to start piano lessons at the age of five; Ahmet had memorized the Koran by age 12) helped establish a bond of brotherliness that only continued to grow as we learned more about each other. The need for this taking-stock was unusually important: based upon reaching a zone of comfort on both sides, a very large project is in the offing: the first-ever dance collaboration with the Konya Mevlana Order of Whirling Dervishes.

Let's switch scenes: we are now in the very luxurious Dedeman Hotel, our generous hospitality sponsor here in Konya. We've rehearsed in one of the many ballrooms at this hotel which also serves as a convention center. Having painstakingly taped all of the seams of the parquet that the hotel laid on top of the carpet for our use(with sharp metal ridges that wouldn't have been noticed by ballroom dancing couples but which would have gauged the bare feet of our dancers), we rehearsed for several hours in preparation for Ahmet's arrival. We made some refinements to the hastily learned "Moonbeam"; and improvised to the Sufi mystic music on Ahmet's recordings.

After having rested briefly, Ahmet arrived at the hotel and we discovered that the hotel staff, thinking that we had completed our work in the ballroom, had dismantled the parquet floor. Ouch!!! However, our intrepid gang came up with an alternative: having fully scoped out and made use of the commodious fitness center in the hotel, they pointed out that the Squash Court would do just as well as the ballroom, perhaps even better because of its wooden floor!

I invite you to picture our "mystical" first showing of our work to this illustrious man in the Squash Court of a 5-star hotel, with sweaty hotel guests peering curiously through the glass barricade of the court! Actually, whatever happened in that court proved to be magical and the bond established in the earlier meetings was reinforced by what Ahmet perceived to be the lyricism, grace and common values of modern dancers from New York and Sufi's from Konya Turkey!

This evening, a few hours ago, the tables were turned and we were treated to our first live display of the Sema at their 2,800 seat Mevlana Center. 24 dervishes bowed, strode forth into the huge circular arena and whirled in a lush display of flowing white robes, high tapered wool hats, arms either folded across the chest or extended with one slightly upwards (to God) and the other draped slightly downward (to Earth)with accompaniment by a similar number of musicians.