All Work No Play Fall Semester

My return from 3 month hiatus. FSU Dance continues to own my life but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I have a terrible saying that I use when I get overly busy during the semester. I like to say that “I’m too busy dancing to dance” – meaning that I’m forced to do a lot of dancing that I don’t have a lot of interest in doing. Meanwhile, the dance that I miss out on (breakdance, turfing, locking) falls by the wayside because I have to take time out of my day to learn graham technique or write up a research paper about line and color.

It hasn’t been all bad. I realize that learning ballet, while atrocious on my body, has helped me refine my muscles in my lower body and given me a control over gravity that I would not have found elsewhere. I’ve also done some really worthwhile work this semester. In mid-October I was privileged to work with MFA student Trent Williams Jr on his thesis piece “Of man…”

2 of my cast mates and good friends in the piece

 

 

This piece took a hard look at what it means to grow up as a man. Excerpts from real life inspired movement that discussed issues of masculinity, acceptance, homo/heterosexuality, and brotherhood.

 

 

And for fun, I also did some work with the FSU Flying High circus for their Halloween show. I got together with a group of their dancers to perform choreography from Michael Jackson’s famous music video ‘Thriller’. The zombie makeup was pretty intense and I had a lot of fun dancing some zombie improv during intermission.

the whole cirus dance cast in full makeup

I would have to say that the thing that I miss most in dance is my hip hop. I’ve said before that I felt spoiled by working with Apocalypse dance in that most other choreography in the southeast doesn’t really compare. Not to say that there aren’t any good choreographers down here, but our group was diving head first into the new west coast style of movement that is not so heavily emphasized in the southeast. I try to keep up with my own iteration of the movement but without a class to teach, I often fall out of my projects. The result is a few gbs of unfinished or unpolished choreography on my computer that is just waiting for the right group of dancers to do something with it.

For now, I have to concentrate on the work that I’ll be presenting for the faculty of FSU in December. I’ve been lucky enough to be cast in two pieces; one by Daniel Clifton and another by Jawole Zoller. The Two are wildly different in process and in production. So even though I’m sad about not being able to breakdance with my peers every night, I never forget that how lucky I am to be able to participate in this program as much as I do.

Plus, I have two of my own works in production. Details on that coming soon….