Lythgoe announces national dance foundation

Inspired by the success of American Idol’s charitable efforts--Idol Gives Back--SYTYCD producer Nigel Lythgoe has established Dizzy Feet Foundation with the help of choreographers Adam Shankman and Carrie Ann Inaba, and actress Katie Holmes. The Foundation’s goal is to “support, improve, and increase access to dance education.” It will provide scholarships for disadvantaged students and create a national standard for teaching.

This is the first time a national effort has been instituted at such a public level.  Many urban dance schools offer scholarships but their resources are limited and their scope necessarily narrow. I know that there are national arts education standards developed for K-12 but I don’t know if they apply to independent studios. It will be interesting to see how these standards compare with DFF’s. I am certain their stamp of approval will help parents make better selections for their kids. Right now, anyone…and I mean anyone…can open a studio and claim to have sufficient knowledge. If you’ve watched the early auditions on SYTYCD, you may have heard Lythgoe take some of these morons to task for claiming to be teachers. Its one of the reasons I respect him so much.

Watch SYTYCD’s 100^th episode on July 23 for their introductory performance (a tribute to Judy Garland’s “Get Happy” from Summer Stock, my favorite of her films). For more details check out the official press release on their website dizzyfeetfoundation.org.

Also in the news, in addition to the passing of Michael Jackson (see my tribute blog on dancedocsthinktank.blogspot.org), the dance world also lost German avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch. She was most popularly known for her 1982 piece in which the stage was covered in pink carnations. She died of cancer at the age of 68.

 

 

Michael Jackson: An American Dancer

I heard the news when, on the elimination show of SYTYCD, Nigel Lithgow announced the deaths this week of three American icons: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. We expected the passing of McMahon (from age) and Fawcett (from cancer), but not Michael Jackson. When I finally had a chance to flip over to the news, they were focusing on the confusing eccentricities of Jackson’s later life. Since I really detest celebrity gossip, I switched over to MTV where we all discovered the enormity of this man’s talents.

"It wasn’t only his dancing we loved,

but the power of his music to make us dance"

MTV is showing Jackson’s impressive catalog of videos, not just clips but the whole unedited versions.  What a joy it is to see this collection one after another. If ever I had doubts about his dancing talent, they were put finally to rest when I watched the long version of Bad with its lengthy group choreography worthy of Broadway. In Beat It the choreography paid tribute to Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story rumble scene. With his slightly shortened pants and stark white socks he remembers Fred Astaire, who was evidently a fan of Jackson’s. And, like Astaire, his dedication and respect for dance is evident in how his videos where shot: with the whole dancer, the whole choreography unmediated by tricky camera shots or sliced up by over-zealous editors.

But, of course it wasn’t only his dancing we loved, but the power of his music to make us dance. In Black and White we are treated to dancers from Africa, India, Native America, and Russia performing to his song. His moves are a part of the world dance vocabulary now. The choreography from Thriller and Beat It are the most well known pieces in the history of dance. I suspect all of us can recall at least one movement from Thriller.  Boys from across the globe learned and performed these choreographies at weddings, parties, in the streets. It a way, Jackson helped make it possible for men to dance with pride and freedom, the effects of which we see today on shows like SYTYCD and America’s Best Dance Crew.

He was generous with his music which never failed to make us feel its power. Whether it was for sheer enjoyment, as in Jam in which he attempts to teach Michael Jordan to moonwalk, or for global healing as in We Are the World, for which even Musak paused its programming. And how can we forget his tender voice in his tribute video for Ryan White. That song, Gone Too Soon, expresses what many of us feel today. What a tragedy that we will not hear from the mature Michael, who was in rehearsal for a new concert tour.

This is the Michael Jackson I morn today; the American artist, the American genius. May he rest in peace.

SYTYCD and the American Dance Renaissance

The new season of So You think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) has started (FOX Wed. nights 8:00, competition; Thur. nights 9:00, results). They are thru with the auditions and have selected the final 20: 10 girls and 10 boys (from this point forward the dancers work almost exclusively in mixed-gendered couples). As always, they have selected a range of dancers, some with already established skills, others with great artistic potential. And naturally, I didn’t always agree with their choices. In fact, they threw out almost everyone I was rooting for. Still, I anticipate an exciting season of dance. How could I not? Even the dancers who were cut demonstrated a level of talent that, to my knowledge, is unprecedented in dance history.

I have been out of touch with mainstream dance for several decades now so I was unaware of the developments in American dance training. How is it that so many dancers—male and female—can sustain multiple spins, acrobatic flips, and extreme splits? In my day it wasn’t even thot physiologically possible for most men to attain a full leg split…how wrong we were. Without doing any deep research (which I may do at some point), I am guessing that the increased strength, flexibility, and coordination of today’s studio-trained dancers is in part due to the increase in scientific knowledge about the human body in motion.  

Janelle Rodriquez, one of my bellydance sisters, once commented that bellydancers of the 1970s-80s demonstrated only a surface understanding of the movement rather than a deeply embodied one. After the fitness crazes of the 1990s, however, a deeper knowledge of the workings of the body in motion produced approaches to dance that require a more sophisticated somatic sensitivity. Suhaila Salimpour, Janelle’s case in point, is a product of this era and developed a technique that goes to the “core” of the movements, deep inside to the musculature.

I observed this teaching style in the gothic dancers as well. Since Salimpour and Gothic techniques require isolating and articulating joints and muscles, pedagogy focuses on contracting and releasing fractions of movement. Kinesiology courses, which address the science of motion, are sometimes required in serious dance training programs. In addition, teachers encourage cross-training in other dance genres as well as in stretch-and-strengthening programs like yoga and pilates which are now offered in dance studios. The results of these approaches is evident in the levels of strength and flexibility of today’s dancers.

The sheer numbers of talented dancers must also be attributed to our current dance-friendly environment. Borrowing from Anthony Shay, we could argue that America is undergoing widespread choreophilia: a love of dance.* There is also a vibrant circuit of dance competitions which challenge dancers to ever higher aspirations and afford teachers and choreographers with national exposure.  Show business ventures from the music industry, television, and touring dance companies provide dancers with real career opportunities.

In short, scientific knowledge, a choreophilic society, and economic opportunities are driving our dance renaissance. So, tune in to SYTYCD and let me know what you think.

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* Anthony Shay coined the term “choreophobia” to refer to societies where dance “carries highly negative connotations.” Anthony Shay Choreophobia: Solo Improvised Dance in the Iranian World 1999.

 

ABDC Finals: Hip Hop Decathlon

Its the next-to-the-last episode of America's Best Dance Crew. This week the final three groups were challenged to a decathlon of hip hop styles and steps. They each had to incorporate house and crump style while performing waves, threading, and tutting. Since I know so little about hip hop history, I personally found this challenge illuminating.

Beat Freaks opened with an excellent routine: tight synchrony, great formations, dynamic changes. Unfortunately, once Quest Crew finished dancing, it was all over.

This was some of the best contemporary dance choreography I’ve ever seen and QC performed to perfection. It finished with one dancer doing a back flip from sitting to standing! No hands! It was astonishing. Even their final number, OrQuestra, which featured head spins on the top of a grand piano while another dancer played it, was brilliant. Congratulations, Quest Crew. Right from the beginning, you stood above the other groups. Heck, I’ve been cheering for Hoc since his first appearance on SYTYCD!

Tune in next week for the big finale. They’re bring all the crews back.

Postscript: I can never resist passing on these cultural nuggets: Shane Sparks was complementary of Beat Freaks “King Tut” section. Stacked in one ascending line front to back, they wave the arms on either side creating the look of a multi-armed goddess. But the image is not Egyptian; it is decidedly Hindu. I pulled out my reference books and could only find one, six- to eight-armed Hindu goddess: Durga. She’s an insubordinate warrior goddess, protectress of the cosmos, slaughtering demons and answering to no man, human or god. Her potency is not for nurturing but for doing battle. She’s a perfect model for hip hop women. They should name the step after her.