Yesterday's performance of the 2 Dancing to Connect groups went very well. Your TA's did a wonderful job with 2 very different groups. Even though Sharon's dancers are beginners I thought they showed up very well AS dancers. Each one tried to put her whole body behind a gesture and dared to really GO to the floor whenever the choreography called for it. I could see that the Gramercy Arts kids were not necessarily performing arts majors and that their abilities were best used in the stop-motion tableaux at the start of the dance. But then individual movers would stand out: the 2 tall boys who could jump like deer and Chris Rivas' running and somersaulting hand in hand with an amazing girl wearing black leotard and tights.
I was reminded, watching these groups of well-rehearsed kids, of the dance intensive that Jaan Freeman (former BDC teaching artist) did with my George Washington HS dancers years ago. The week-long dance intensive draws the kids in very powerfully and the quality of their performance is far beyond what anyone is usually expecting. Suzanne remarked to me afterwards that the dances were alike in their serious and upsetting subject matter, that the kids were dealing with some hard things in their lives. And it's Battery Dance that gives them an outlet.
In admiration,
Leslie Zema
Thursday, February 11, 2010
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