Last night, I saw Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE dance company's performance, One Shot, at BRIC Arts Media Center in downtown Brooklyn.

Inspired by the life and work of noted photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, who documented black life in Pittsburgh from 1936 to 1975, the piece incorporated video projections and Brown's classic West African, Afro-Cuban, and modern dance vocabulary.

They were luminous. I've been a fan of his for over a decade now and it's so beautiful watching the company change over time, and my favorite dancers come and go and come back again--like Keon Thoulouis, whose solos were phenomenal.

If you're in New York you must, must, must see it. Tickets and more info at BRIC Arts Media. --AL.

I had the wonderful opportunity to film The Opulence of Integrity, a four-movement evening-length work inspired by the life of Muhammad Ali presented by Christal Brown/INSPIRIT. The filming came together rather organically, after I attended Christal's movement workshop at Cumbe Dance Center on my birthday. It had been years since I'd taken one of her workshops, and I was long overdue for the jumps, falls, and ground work.

I used to live by Christal's "Write to Dance" summer intensives at the 92nd Street YMCA, exploring how text can influence movement and vice versa. One summer of note, on my way to a new job as an executive assistant, faced with the decision of missing the workshop I realized that I only wanted to write and dance--so I walked off the subway. As dramatic as it was, looking back, it was the right call.

Christal has since moved on from Urban Bush Women and INSPIRIT, her company of female dancers, to teach at Middlebury College. She is a force and her work is phenomenal. Watch a clip of The Opulence of Integrity. And donate to Christal's Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a national tour! --AL.

burkina faso-born choreographer souleymane badolo presents yaado, his new work commissioned by danspace project, at the apap showcase--presented by the association of performing arts presenters--at dance new amsterdam this week. i've been excited about souleymane ever since his recent collaboration with my choreography idol nora chipaumire (pictured above right with souleymane). the performance is FREE, so if you're in new york, definitely check it out.

more info on souleymane's apap performance here. more info on the entire roster of apap artists here. --AL.

"In Yaado, Souleymane Badolo brings customs and rituals at the seams of cultures (urban versus rural) into the present and beyond, evolving them within a contemporary art context, dancing not to lose his rural and traditional heritage."

I spent a bit of time looking for my passport today. I realized that I hadn't seen it in a couple of years, which became an issue since I'm trying to book a flight to Nigeria. I found it more easily than I thought I would and, like I suspected, it's expiring soon. It's slightly depressing that I haven't used it more in the past ten years since I renewed it last.

I went to Ghana in 2001, the summer of my sophomore year of college. I have this crazy video of myself, rehearsing with a dance troupe in the dead of night in a suburb of Accra. A lone lightbulb casts a triangle of light across a cement enclosure lined with a fence, flanked with a battalion of drummers. I am whirling around in the middle of a circle of dancers, my hair in a short afro, wearing a gauzy black shirt over a floor-length skirt.

I forgot my change of clothes that day, the last rehearsal before my plane ride back to US. I had gotten lost on my way to the enclosure, coming from a different part of town than usual. I was wandering through the darkened street, when a pair of headlights approached me, and a kind taxi driver offered to help me find the place. We drove around madly for a half hour, before we stumbled upon another black woman wandering the streets who was also in need of a ride.

It turned out that she was a Stanford alum, though a decade older than me, and a former member of Kuumba Dance Ensemble, also like me. She had a video camera with her and agreed to come with me to rehearsal and tape us, so that I would have something to show for my time spent (I took no photos of rehearsals out of respect). My karma restored, we found the enclosure. Cut to me whirling around in the dark, the vision of which now simply amazes me. I am trying to remember this young woman I once was, the steps I took along the path to get where I am now. Wiser, I suppose, but in many ways missing my youthful bravado.

All of this to say. There are various colored stamps inside this tiny book with my picture in it -- Belize, South Africa (a couple of times), Brazil, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria (a couple of times) -- but there are far too many empty spaces for it to be expiring. Maybe it is my own will that has expired? I dreamt of London and Paris and Havana and Marrakesh, but perhaps I lacked the courage to do more than dream. When I was younger, I did not dwell on dreams and I did not plan; I simply left.

I met a woman at Hedgebrook who has lived everywhere in the world, from Yosemite to Amsterdam and Kenya. She took her first semester college tuition, twenty years or so ago, and traveled cross country with it. She hasn't stopped since, although she recently purchased a home in New Jersey and is now, from what I gather, reconsidering it.

She does not know this, but she is my hero. I think there is wisdom in stones, especially those that roll -- gathering no moss, being shaped by time and the earth and universal flow. There is a natural order in remaining in motion, in seeking disorder.

I only wish I could say this to her in a way that she would believe it. I think she may feel flighty and haphazard about her lifestyle, but I think that life is full of expiration dates -- on relationships, jobs, leases, countries of residence -- and one need only know how to recognize and respond to them. The truly courageous and unstuck people simply let it expire, and move on. That said, I don't think most people do.

I certainly have expired on many fronts, but am hanging on for dear life. I have wanted to do some drastic thing with my appearance for some time now, be it cutting my locks, or dying them again, getting a new wardrobe, but I inevitably find myself still feeling awkward in my skin. I have wanted to simply move anywhere else in the world for no reason at all but to encounter my own difference in that environment and thereby discover myself again, yet find myself straggling here in NYC. I have wanted to really be a starving artist, instead of a gainfully employed professional sneaking her writing in on the subway and on her lunch break; but for some reason, here I sit, and here I stay.

I don't know what any of that means, but I do think expiration dates can be used to reevaluate the status quo. If it hasn't been working for you, let the universe help you change it. For now, I definitely need some more stamps in my passport. That much I know is true.

I am a mover -- dancer, runner, cardio kickboxer, anything to keep from sitting still. But I haven't been able to move in awhile since I tore the meniscus in my right knee. I have been holding it together for several months, have taken well to pilates class and long walks in the park, but yesterday I found myself losing it.

I watched Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose and Lorena Bobbitt on Oprah, wrote a little, and then decided I should go to the first dance class I've attended in weeks. I don't know what I was thinking, perhaps I had just overcome the fear of re-injuring myself that kept me at home the entire week of Ronald Brown's intensive in Brooklyn. Well, dancing yesterday confirmed that my right leg has in fact been rendered lame by my torn meniscus.

I tend to move quickly without thinking much, in life and in dance, and it's largely why I hurt my knee to begin with. I threw my leg up too fast, I think, and it certainly could have been prevented if I had ever learned to move properly. There have been bits of myself falling apart for years, I suppose, but this seems so dramatic. To see my right leg shake just to support my body is like watching a new baby wobble. And I do not take well to infirmity.

Instead of crying, yesterday, I bought vegan chocolate chip cookies at Whole Foods. I find that comfort food, too, is not working anymore. Damn raw foods turned my system against all that is well and good in junk food. My stomach is okay, but my intestines cramp up and I end up doubled over.

At home at night, I lay in bed watching Star Trek on my laptop and icing my knee. The pain feels like a deep sting radiating out in concentric circles. I wanted to scream, to ask God why it is that my knee does not work any more. Why it is that the thing which brings me the greatest joy has been taken from me. I cannot express how stunning the physical and mental pain.

I read somewhere that, when life spins out of balance, one should seek the center of the wheel -- the self (I think). But I don't know what to do when the self is also spinning, exploding outward, collapsing.

I think perhaps the holding on to the wheel at all, to what is being lost, to what is not working, hurts far more than the letting go. Perhaps if I lost it, I might find some measure of relief.

May 26, 2009
After Katiti King's jazz class @ DNA on Saturday, I went to the DanceAfrica Festival @ Brooklyn Academy of Music. I got to dance in the street and see some folks I haven't laid eyes on since moving to the Bronx. Ronald K. Brown/Evidence performed this year (pictured above).

I've been a festival regular since before I moved to NYC, taking a bus in just to spend the day bargaining with street vendors. Six years later it can feel a bit like same shit different day, although my girl Lady Black's sister, a painter, had this amazing portable art -- suitcases and briefcases that she covered in images of Africa and afro-ed sistas. I really should have copped one, definitely something I'd never seen before. I came correct, though -- bought some raw shea butter, a leopard-print clutch, agate ring, and green-and-white-striped bangle. Now accessorized, I am so ready for the IAFF.

Spent Memorial Day at home writing. Bliss. :)

What got me to the Brooklyn Museum for First Saturdays yesterday was a conversation between choreographer Bill T. Jones and noted film critic Elvis Mitchell, of NPR fame.

Jones -- who is featured in a new exhibit, The Black List Project, by photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and interviewer Mitchell -- discussed his life, Lincoln, Fela Kuti, and the role of anger in art.

Jones was a wannabe actor who, after discovering African dance through the late great Percival Borde, began his dance career at the age of 19. He went on to become a celebrated postmodern choreographer with notable commissioned works, including a project commemorating Abraham Lincoln.

Describing a scene typical of his younger days, when he flashed a man and his two young children during a performance, Jones considered the role of an artist in society:

"He ought to be running naked through the streets thumbing his nose at people. Absolutely free. But there's a conservativizing effect that comes with success. I began to ask whether I should edit myself more."

Jones urged all artists to "describe your world with as much accuracy and generosity as you can," noting that only then can you engage in a higher dialogue about issues of race, class, and gender. All too often, artists make the mistake of starting with the big picture and working backwards to the personal. They paint with too broad a brush, losing their point-of-view and failing to tap the raw material of their emotions -- namely anger, desire, and love.

"Fela! was primarily an entertainment. Work for hire," Jones said. "My producer brought the story to me and I created a show." Jones's latest production was amazingly well choreograped, scored (by Antibalas), designed, and performed -- lead actor Sahr was phenomenal and the dancers were fiery -- but it was a little too light on story.

Jones felt that imparting Fela's message was more important than being true to how he would've spoken or even behaved in certain situations. "[My producer] asked me why I wanted to translate some of the words [Fela sang] and I said because most people would not understand pidgin English."

There was more Fela to come, at a dance party pitting DJs Rich Medina and Spinna in a Fela vs. James Brown spinoff. It was a little too light on Fela, but I danced the night away all the same.