A Groupie?!?

"I have fallen out of love with dance."

I said this to a blogger via email last week. It is not that I do not like dance anymore, but more so the "scene" was starting to turn me off from dancing socially. People are acting like they are still in high school. There are cliques who only dance among themselves and there are people whoring around on the 'down-low' while having spouses, children and significant others. 

I suppose most of that will always happen but it is a bit disheartening when you treat an art form as such and only want to enjoy it. Because of everything going on I had pretty much stopped social dancing outside of supporting loved ones and good friends. 

I still perform with my salsa group. We have received some amazing offers to perform. Without them and my adopted Cuban family I think I may have stopped dancing all together by now. I think both groups are the reason I may have found my dance mojo again.

We received an invite to share the spotlight with a great salsa group who were coming to the area. Before I was a member, the girls danced with this group the last time they came to the area a few years ago. I had no idea I was in for such a treat! The group of  seven musicians combine Jazz, R&B, Classical and modern Cuban (known as Timba) to create a unique sound that literally makes you get out of your seat. 

The lead singer introduced our group and we got a chance to share the spotlight with these truly incredible musicians. They are gracious and humble (we also met them backstage before the show) and even danced with the crowd after the show. (try getting an American "musical celebrity" to do that). The best thing after the show was having them tell US thank you!

Thank us?!? Nope, thank you! We danced, laughed, sang along with the songs and even beat on the stage along with the drummer. We had so much fun that every time a musician had a solo they would come straight to us at the edge of the stage. I guess we had too much fun with the band because while waiting for a photo-op after the show, a young college student called us groupies.

O_0

Groupies?!?

Who you calling groupies?!?

If dancing through a concert, having the band introduce you as "special guests" and having the lead singer dance in the middle of your group in the dance area and using your group to start the conga line makes us groupies, then yes young buck. I will take that title. I will take it proudly and you know why?

Because dancing with them made me realize why I fell in love with dance in the first place. THAT will make me a groupie any day!

The band ended their concert with a conga line lead by the singer through the crowd (while still singing, of course) and around the audience. We picked up people as we went and had an absolute blast. In fact the band director (piano player) was introducing the last song and one of my fellow dancers and myself were at the stage chanting "conga, conga" and he stopped his speech to say "Yes, ladies. We are going to conga."

*KayC giggles like a school girl*

I think you should conga too :-)

Click here to buy their music Until Next Time,
Peace & Blessings...

       

Art Imitating Life

My performance group has started practicing for our next show which is on my birthday! This is our "best of" show which revisits all of our favorite dances, music and poetry. Since our cast has changed over the last few years some dances have different choreography.

I have been cast in a dance called "Four Women" to the music of Nina Simone with the same title. Guess who I play? Aunt Sarah! With every thing going on in my life right now I get cast as Aunt Sarah. HA!

Here are the lyrics to my part:

My skin is black
My arms are long
My hair is woolly
My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain
It’s been inflicted again and again
What do they call me
My name is aunt sarah
My name is aunt sarah

We have practiced this song for the last two weeks and I had a difficult time getting into the mindset of Aunt Sarah. She starts the song which means I set the tone for the entire piece. Black skin? Check. Long arms? Check. Wooly hair? Check. I'm suppose to be strong? Well...uhhh...CHECK!

I can do this. I CAN DO THIS! I can take what life has thrown at me. It is okay to retreat, regroup and reactivate. I forgot the regroup and reactivate part. But it is perfectly normal, it is human and every so often we fall and like babies learning to walk we just sit there and cry about it.

I had to give myself permission to grieve. Grieve for something I desperately wanted and found out I may not have. I have made the journey through the first few steps of the grief process and like everything else in life I will learn from this experience and move on.

I am bent and bruised but will not be broken. Funny, my Artistic Director had no idea what I was going through when she cast me in "Four Women." It is simply art imitating life.

If you haven't heard Four Women:

Four Women - Nina Simone

Peace & Blessings...

Dancing with Lokua Kanza

During my previous post I mentioned my performance group being guest performers for Lokua Kanza. It was my introduction to the singer from the Congo and I approached this performance like any other.

My performance group has a master percussionist (also from the Congo) who regularly performs with us as well as travel the world to beat fantastic rhythms with various artists. Imagine our surprise when he introduced us to his mentor who is highly requested throughout Europe.

The night went wonderfully as I struggled with my rusty french trying to understand the Congolese performers and the French lighting tech. Hearing Mr. Kanza for the first time was beyond words. He performed with his guitar, one percussionist and two back up singers and the sound was identical to the CD. (which has been in my CD player since last week)

We had one set with our drummer and his mentor with us dancing before we changed and sat in the audience as Mr. Kanza sang in French, but quickly switched to English when he realized the audience understood and responded in French. In his words "if you can speak in French, I can speak in English." We rushed to change back into costumes and did an upbeat finale in which he stated he "wasn't prepared for the beautiful women to dance around him, they must join us again when we come back."

Indeed, Mr. Kanza we will :)

Here are the specifics from the show and a slide show with Mr. Kanza's music with pictures from our performance. We danced to a more upbeat number, but this song is one of my favorites:




Lokua Kanza, one of the most accomplished International Congolese recording artists on the scene. He is a prolific singer, songwriter, and composer known for his soulful folksy sound, unusual in the land of Soukous. He has worked and performed with the top names in the business such as Papa Wemba, Manu Dibango, Youssou N’Dour, and Angélique Kidjo to name a few.

This cultural production aims to promote awareness and raise funds for the tens of thousand of women and girls who are kidnapped, tortured, brutally raped and sexually enslaved daily in the Democratic Republic of Congo's intractable civil war.


Peace & Blessings...

Smashing Stereotypes

My dance troupe recently performed with a Master Chorale. It was extremely interesting and liberating.

Let's set the scene, our very eclectic, colorful and very African-American troupe performed at a Jewish temple with an all Caucasian chorus.

Not amused yet? Hold on.

The chorus performed Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes and Mack Wilberg’s Dances to Life complete with two Steinway pianists as we danced very lyrical and ballet heavy numbers complete with high lifts and throws. Mesh all of that together for a very entertaining Sunday afternoon.

Now, if we can only get a copy of the DVD. Judging from the conversations of the patrons after the show, I am more than positive there are some hilarious looks on the faces of the crowd ;-)

Preparing for the Stage

My performance group is preparing for a number of upcoming shows. Next week we are performing at an elementary school diversity program, which should be a lot of fun. We are performing our signature piece the "bele dance" which the children should love because of the drummers and colorful costumes and a few kid-friendly age appropriate poetry pieces.

I have mentioned dancing with the performance group a lot in previous posts, so here is an unedited piece from the drummers practice. More to follow...

Performing Again After 10 Years

I graced the stage for the first time in 10 years yesterday. A co-worker who is quickly becoming a friend re-visited her love for the stage and revived her performance group. She asked a group of people would we like to participate and we agreed not knowing what the show was about and what we were getting into. I guess we all trusted her judgment and I am glad we did.

The show is a cultural experience of poetry, singing, dancing.(Calypso, African, Jazz) I could never give justice to the group, so I will post snippets of performances when they are available.

I have never liked my voice on tape or over the phone, so having a wireless microphone stuck in front of me was an experience. It was wonderful to have people come up to me after both shows and tell me how smooth and powerful my voice is to them. I was even asked how long I had been doing spoken word. My answer, "All of ten minutes!" (It was about ten minutes after my first piece of the matinée show)

Confirmation is always a good thing. And I simply can not put into words how good it felt to be backstage preparing for a show and being part of a production again.