Hey Laura How are you?
I had been meaning to call and catch up now my baby ed is back and I can take some time out. The events in the US are terrible and deeply troubling and I want to know everyone is OK. I hope your family and friends are OK. I will try calling again this week. Heaps of love Cyclone ---------- >From: "laura gavoor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], 313@hyperreal.org >Subject: Re: [313] Detroit + Dance--ON topic!! >Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 1:01 AM > >Races of people are DEFINED and otherwise anthropologically analyzed and >studied by the culture of their society(ies). That being said, our culture >will be defined by the 'dance' exhibited in music videos and titty bars. > >For decades, Americans have only supported ballet and classical music-- both >white, European and considered 'upper crusty'. While classical music has >been all but eliminated from some folks diets, like in Detroit where we now >support NO classical music radio station. > >Most underclass art forms-- like the black dance-- have had to market >fiercely and find support from private foundations and institutions to have >a presence and continue enriching the lives of the TRULY unimaginative >capitalist. > >Dancers are like any other artist. They simply know they must dance, or >their lives are over, lackluster and pain-filled. We've survived and will >continue to survive whether we are popular by your definitions or not. >Much like the music and artists that this list is built around, some years >may bring popularity and more revenue, most will not. > >It detracts NOT from the art and certainly not from this artist. > >I imagine you've never, BY YOUR OWN DESIRE, ever gone to see ANY dance >company. Why should you when there are professional atheletes ? Americans >have become a people very much like lemmings--ignorant of not only the >present, but with eyes wide shut running after the head 'lem' straight off a >cliff. > >Like any act from one's higher self, dance is a joy experienced only in The >Expression or The Giving. While it is meant to take something obscure, >illuminate it and clarify it, it matters not a whit whether you get it or >not. It will continue in spite of you. > >To see movement of the caliber that I experienced watching the Ailey dancers >was the highest form of appreciation that Roy Davis Jr., et. al could >possibly envision. Beat for beat, musically technical elocution matched >impeccably with physically technical elocution...those dancers EMBODIED >Roy's music. It looked surreal, but was actually happening, on a stage in >downtown Detroit. > >He and I had a long conversation about just that in Miami at the WMC. He >was so excited to see the piece performed after he licensed the track to the >company for their use, he is already working on something else with the same >choreographer. > >The Alvin Ailey company is a dance company by which ALL other dance >companies are graded, whether one is aware of them or not, or whether one >supports them or not. Just as they will take it as far as they can, most >dancers or artists of any genre will do the same--because it is who they >are--not because it is popular or supported. > >Buy your season tickets to whatever you feel compelled to follow or whatever >YOU feel enriches your one dimensional existence. > >Oddly, the darkest moments of human existence are always rapidly followed by >'the renaissances' of the arts/existence. The American government is one of >the only that does not even support a national ballet company, much less a >company like Ailey's. > >It matters not. The human imagination exists not to garner a profit...it >simply exists. Dreaming of Utopia is FREE and cannot be governed. That was >one thing Hitler failed to realize when he marched into each major city and >immediately seized museums, art, libraries and eliminated any expression of >human existence that were subversive to his goal. > >Deluded?? Who?? > >Art, of any type, will always stimulate change....but perhaps you LIKE the >way things are now. Just a guess........ > > >>From: "Joshua Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>To: "laura gavoor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <313@hyperreal.org> >>Subject: Re: [313] Detroit + Dance (off topic) >>Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 18:57:50 -0400 >> >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "laura gavoor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>To: <313@hyperreal.org> >>Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 7:26 PM >>Subject: Re: [313] Detroit + Dance >> >> >> > Still amazes me how dense most Americans are when it comes to the arts. >> > Sorry to soap box, but few dancers live very OKAY lives for lack of >>support >> > in this country. Most still live the life of the starving artist with a >> > couple of other jobs to survive, even while maintianing a position in >>one >>of >> > the world's most prestigious dance companies. >> > >> > After all...what is dance music without the dancer. >> >>Speaking of dance music, isn't the dancer (in America) usually the dense >>American? >> >>If a professional dancer is with "one of the world's most prestigious dance >>companies" and still needs to hold multiple jobs, then isn't this a global >>issue and not some problem of priorities with "most Americans"? >> >>Or perhaps the problem is specifically American: "How many poor people, who >>envy and hate the rich, nevertheless tolerate monstrous inequalities of >>wealth merely because they hope eventually to be among the few who rise to >>the top? Some even consider this vicious delusion admirable: 'the American >>Dream.'" (Allen Wood). >> >>Or maybe we average Americans don't support professional dancers because we >>are expected, by the dancers, to support them as if they are the string by >>which our distorted values cling to the isolated pockets of "critically >>aclaimed" cultural enlightenment. >> >>/j >> > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
