Jessica Koslow

Hallelujah Junction/Paul Kolnik

To be completely honest, I’m a hip-hop dancer who considers herself pretty narrow-minded when it comes to other styles.

Sure, my parents took me to The Nutcracker when I was a kid, and I have seen several performances by American Ballet Theatre. But overall, my assessment of ballet was pretty bleak.

I am, however, on a quest to broaden my horizons and appreciate all that the world has to offer. To this end, I took a drive to CSUN this past Sunday to attend New York City Ballet Moves at Valley Performing Arts Center. To say that I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

For somebody who is usually lulled to sleep by strings and shutters when she thinks of the strict practice and eating regime the dancers have to abide by, I left this performance gleefully leaping through the air.

Never before I have I seen ballet dancers having such fun, or eliciting in me any feeling close to fun. Like a first date, the duets sparkled with young, playful love. It was not that refined romance I’m used to seeing on stage, but one of kids chasing each other, thrilled when they are caught. The group performances resembled party-like atmospheres. In “Hallelujah Junction,” Daniel Ulbricht was the stud at the center of everyone’s attention. When he circled the stage in twirling leaps, it was a no-brainer that he was leaving the scene with a pocketful of numbers.

In “Polyphonia,” the show’s opener, four couples gracefully yet speedily formed shapes with their limbs, striking a distant resemblance to the Village People’s “YMCA.” Without a narrative, the piece made me think harder about where to look. With four couples to follow, it wasn’t as easy as focusing on Sleeping Beauty. Another fresh factor in many of the pieces, this one included, was the emphasis on the piano. As mentioned above, strings seemed to be my downfall; piano was now my caffeine.

Being new to ballet reviews, I understand there is discussion over the meaning of “contemporary ballet”. On Flavorwire, Michelle Vellucci asks, “Is it a blend of modern and ballet? Could it be hip-hop performed in pointe shoes? Does cross-breeding ballet with other genres necessarily dilute the form, or read as a critique of it?”

I am now of the opinion that laying on the floor and performing movements that border on chunky blips and hand rolls up the side of the body enhance the form. The youthful energy of the Moves stars may have been the ticket to my newfound appreciation of ballet, but I also believe it was the feisty, festive attitude that shot through the movements.

With pep in their steps and smiles across their faces, this traveling cast of New York City Ballet made me think those New Yorkers are on to something.

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Photo by: Andrew Lang

Watching Hofesh Shechter perform their U.S. premiere of Political Mother this past Thursday night strangely brought to mind two related scenes in the recent release of the remake of Footloose.

Ren, the main character of Footloose, is starting a petition to repeal the ban on public dancing in the small town where he has relocated to after his mother’s death. The high school senior is not only good at getting down, but he obviously identifies dancing as something that’s good for the mind, body and soul. For Ren, dancing in public also represents an act of youthful rebellion and freedom that should be a right for the town’s teenagers, who are instead monitored, controlled and treated as untrustworthy delinquents. One afternoon when frustrated by all of the slack he feels like he’s getting for being the new, big city, bad boy in the repressive town, he drives to an empty warehouse and dances wildly, “pouring his heart out” visually.

This type of emotional outburst marks the powerfully charged atmosphere of Political Mother. Artistic Director Hofesh Shechter’s first full-length piece opens with a samurai performing hara-kiri, and follows a stream of handsome, plainly dressed dancers twisting, throwing, lunging, shaking, jumping, and skipping as they careen on and off stage. The music alternates between big rock and hard metal, and the conductor switches between a lead singer and a dictator. The music and dancers are fast then slow, loud then soft. A disconcerting sense of mania pervades Royce Hall, as dizzying music and shadowy lighting traps the audience and places them in the center of confusion, tragedy, militaristic angst and angry desperation. It is a chore to remain focused, and not tune out.

Keeping in time with the world we live in, and taking into consideration the choreographer’s Israeli roots, the message in the movements’ madness is whirling around the stage, screaming into the silent crowd. In the final scene, it physically appears as the backdrop: “Where there is pressure there is folk dance.”

What Political Mother expresses best of all is the immediacy, the need to take particular action, whether to kill, to control, to oppose, to release, to move. Dance becomes the weapon, the tool, the outlet, the expression of political desire. Politics is messy. Music is messy. Dance is messy. Political Mother is a chaotic mix of dance styles – Israeli folk, modern, breaking, krumping – an explosive burst delivering the emotional impact of an inspiring peace speech.

Which brings me back to my point about Footloose, and why I take such exception to the following scene. Ren’s aunt comes into his room as he’s writing his speech for the town meeting, and she asks, “Why is dance so important to you?” The teen takes amoment and replies, “Because I want to stand out,” adding, “I don’t want to disappear like everyone else,” as he looks over at a photo of his mother.

His answer misses the mark completely, and as a result, Footloose fails to express in words what Political Mother so successfully achieves on stage. The drive to dance derives from a place deep within an individual, and the tapping of that creative wellspring is liberatory. The urgency to express or release what is repressed or pent-up is essential.

Whether it is a town’s ban or a regime’s repression, the atrocities of war or the hardships of economic oppression, creative outlet through dance marches on. Movement as a survival technique becomes both beautiful and poignant, and the freeing of the body through dance is as significant to the spectator as it is to the performer.

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Positive Dose/Sthanlee B. Mirador

In the words of KRS-One, Versa Style’s six-run engagement of “Positive Dose” over the past two weekends was “edutainment.”

It was a true mind and body experience: The audience felt the kinetic energy of the hype dancers while meditating on the history of hip-hop dance within the larger context of the dance world, and of the power and meaning of dance within hip-hop culture.

The multimedia components of the performance were as captivating as the physical movements. Not to downplay the skill sets of the individual body movers, who each bring their own funk factor to the stage, but what really impacted the crowd was the video segments’ creation of historical narrative.

Opening the show was video footage of Rennie Harris, a hip-hop dance legend, teacher, and artistic director and choreographer of Rennie Harris Puremovement, who traced elements of hip-hop dance back to singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers and all-around entertainment phenomenon Sammy Davis, Jr. Viewing footage of Sammy bouncing gracefully on the floor, kicking his feet to the beat, it is hard not to spot the beginnings of breaking.

Next, came a visually stimulating lesson on the huge influence of “Soul Train” on hip-hop dance styles and their increasing popularity.

Dancers became celebrities and the newly invented dance styles circulated the globe. Interviews with historical icons like Damita Jo Freeman, the first lady of “Soul Train,” put the past in the present’s lap, not only to celebrate the funk styles of that time but to acknowledge that today’s funk links to yesterday and inspires tomorrow.

The most vibrant elements of hip-hop culture—the spirit of inclusion, innovation, reverence and authenticity —were on display at the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts in Downtown L.A.

The first half of the performance was billed as “travelling into the roots of dances that have contributed to the rich hip-hop experience.”

Versa Style made each of us feel wealthy beyond words.

“Positive Dose” was more real than dance reality shows like “So You Think You Can Dance.” The multimedia presentations revealed the historical heart of hip-hop dance, and the cast on stage showed it to us, in the form of popping, locking, breaking, house and other popular funk and dance moves.

Dance styles will continue to change based on time, place and space, but they remain in conversation with the culture. Versastyle did an excellent job of recapping this conversation for people who knew and best of all, for those that didn’t.

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In the two posts I recently wrote for the Getty’s PST blog, which are up today, I found a common theme that has left me feeling awkward. In one I discuss black art and in the other black cinema, and in both I feel like the underlying thrust is, “Look at how surprising it was that these types of people, whether black or women, created this art at this time.” I think in both cases these sentiments were expressed in quotes from sources, and it is noteworthy to point these things out in a society that often overlooks the achievements of minorities and women most of the time. And maybe that should be my overarching concern, that we have to point out the achievements of women and minorities because it is not the norm.

Footage from Tee and my Oct. 12 visit to the Wednesday night krump circle.

David Wilson of MJT

When I googled Museum of Jurassic Technology, I stumbled on a blog post on ARTINFO unearthing Yelp complaints about the museum. A few read, Avoid this place like the plague, and This place is just stupid, and the blog’s favorite, Your exhibits are old and falling apart. Your strange, but not strange fascinating. Strange like a hobo that I don’t want to talk, too.

David Wilson, the founder of the museum with his wife, has additional stories to share. “When people come here they have all different kinds of experiences,” he begins. Some laugh at everything they see. Or, he continues, “We have people who hate us. There are in almost all of our guest books places where people haven’t just crossed out their name when they leave, but they obliterate it. They make it so you couldn’t possibly tell that they had been here.”

To these disgruntled visitors, I say, “Have you sipped tea and nibbled cookies in the Tula Tea Room and relaxed in the rooftop garden? I cannot think of a negative thing to say about these two spots. For me, they are Wilson’s greatest accomplishments.

In 2001, Wilson scored a MacArthur genius grant and decided to invest in, among other things, a tea room and rooftop garden. Construction began seven years ago, and the spaces that wanderers see today are the result of budgetary constraints. He would have liked to do more.

Wilson wanted to expand the experience of the museum for some time, and he jumped on the award as a means to an end. “We have way too much text by normal museum standards,” he relays, “you just glaze over. We’ve come to understand there’s a need for respite.”

For inspiration, Wilson looked to other museums and architectural wonders, like the Sir John Soane Museum in London, the Sant Pau monastery in Barcelona and the courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “We draw on things that are inspiring to us. Our travels took us a few years ago to Uzbekistan, so a lot of this,” he says, looking around the serene, greenery-laden garden echoing the sounds of the spouting fountain off the walls, “is Uzbekistan.”

For the museum’s haters, I would agree with Wilson that, “Nothing is for everyone.” If you don’t like uncertainty, don’t walk this way. “I don’t mind being confused,” assures Wilson. “I think it’s an illusion to think you really know things. You can claim an area, but do you really know? Where was it you came from, ultimately? You don’t know. That’s a lot truer. Some people, understandably, don’t like to be in that place. Those I think are people that don’t like us. And that’s O.K.”

“For certain kinds of folks, a certain particular way of knowing seems like the real hope for the species,” Wilson goes on. “That by knowing things in a certain way we can overcome the obstacles of life, disease, natural disasters. That should be the mission for the species, that kind of progressing of knowledge.” To the contrary, Wilson points out, “Many ways of knowing things ends up being a really valuable thing.” He often delivers sentences like this that read like mantras and affirm his belief in doubt, such as, Blurred boundaries are much more real, and I’ve spent most of my life confused.

The certainty-loving types would be wise to contemplate the purpose of any museum. Wilson explains that in 1984 when his place popped up, modern society was experiencing a crisis in museums. The digital age was dawning and the museum world was interested in what he was doing differently to appeal to people. Wilson even received an invite from the British version of the American Association of Museums to be the keynote speech at their conference. Wilson was so shocked that he wrote to them and explained they must have meant to request the other David Wilson, the past director of the British Museum who had just retired. No, they responded, they had meant him.

Rather than providing the entertainment for that night, as Wilson jokes, “Institutions were realizing what’s the place of the museum when you carry in your pocket access to information that is exponentially way beyond what any museum could present; what’s the place of the museum?”

In establishing the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Wilson has answered his own question: What would happen if he worked as hard as he did on his film work on something he cared about?

Photos of the Tula Tea Room and Rooftop garden

Wilson speaks about the garden

And about the naysayers

Photo by Carlos Delgado

I recently wrote Todd Nielsen Returns to Robber Bridegroom at ICT for LA Stage Times, and I really tried to “circle the ideas” as Sasha instructed us, and have a “clear point of view”, as we’ve been discussing with David. What made it especially hard is not having seen any version of the musical in any decade. I tried to do as much research as I had time for, but I didn’t get a chance to read Eudora Welty’s novella, upon which the musical is based. This frustrated me a bit because I felt like I was right back in the workforce juggling deadlines and feeling rushed without enough time to conduct good research. But, I did approach this piece with the idea that I would focus on something (i.e., the director Todd’s philosophies about directing and about his opinion about the show’s underlying themes) and reveal more about the director than the show. Sort of like a look into Todd’s mind. How did I do?

John Leguizamo loves to talk about himself. His one-man shows (This is his fifth.) are like therapy. For the past 20 years, he has used the stage to contemplate, criticize, parody, purge and ultimately, forgive the important players in his life. Everything that has happened to him –– from pushing and getting pushed by Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal, respectively, to aggravating Al Pacino –– and everyone who has touched him ––his best friend-from-the-block RayRay, his old-lady acting coach with three hairs sticking up nicknamed Tweety –– have helped create who he is: a ghetto klown.

Born in the “scrotum of Queens, next to the penis of Manhattan” (he announces as he projects a show-and-tell map of the two boroughs outlined as genitalia), Leguizamo stumbled into acting at the urging of an exacerbated math teacher. After reading plays by the greats like Sam Shepherd and Miguel Pinero, he saw that fucked up lives could be put down on paper. Another central epiphany to Leguizamo’s life output happened when he realized he could hide behind characters, whether of someone else’s design or his own. The hip and handsome manboy reveals what most of us have figured out about him at this point in his career; he transformed his destructive impulses into creative ones.

Much of what Leguizamo talks about in “Ghetto Klown” is not new. We’ve seen caricatures of his family and pieces of his life in his previous plays. His personal story of a struggling actor struggling with issues surrounding auditioning, ego, improvisation and rejection,is not unique, either. But it’s John Leguizamo that’s fresh each time he steps on stage. He is part hip-hop, Colombian, celebrity, father, lover and more, and he delivers his fast-talking tales and hyper antics in the form of raw comedy, music, multimedia projections, dance moves and hilarious imitations.

Leguizamo trash talks his fellow costars, embarrasses his closest family and often provides political insight, like when he explains what he calls subjugation architecture by projecting a picture of a school that looks like a jail and a jail that looks like a school, both in New York City. One of the most pleasant surprises of the show is sifting through Leguizamo’s large body of work. From his first role as a drug dealer on “Miami Vice” in 1984 to his scoring his own variety show, “House of Buggin’, in 1995 on FOX, to the plethora of big and small TV and movie roles he has racked up, his prolific catalogue might surprise many of his everyday fans.

Throughout “Ghetto Klown,” Leguizamo tries to give us a glimpse of his “internal jihad”, how every time he spirals and hits rock bottom, he bounces back with a spring of inspiration. His constant search for love and approval is satisfied through exhibition and audience connection. As Leguizamo affirms continuously throughout the night: “Sharing my unhappiness on stage is my happiness.”

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