Pics of me in the studio and Micheal Montgomery dancing in "Man Redefined"
Hey.
Being ADHD and all everyone knows that I keep myself busy. With that said this weekend is the culmination of a lot of work.
For starters I have a silent involvement in a sketch comedy troupe called the S.H.I.T show that runs Friday and Saturday the rest of the month (started the 1st). Working with actors has been one of the best working experiences I have ever had. Not too mention I was laughing the entire time. When I did come up for air I would tell them "guys, im just a vessel” and we’d move on. Shout out to Ray and Evan for becoming the movement and surviving our “meeting” at the Pirate Ship☺
Another project that is going down this weekend is very special to me. I have had the privilege to get invited to set a piece for the Lorraine Hansbury foundation annual fundraising gala this year at the Ritz Carlton. For anyone who does not know Lorraine Hansbury is a very famous Afro-American playwright whom wrote A Raisin in The Sun, which my commission is based off of. The multi-talented Director of the Lorraine Hansbury Theatre Stanley Williams and I have had many discussions about my involvement with the theatre and how im supposed to help usher in a new audience because my work is "edgy" or "progressive". Not too big on those description of my work because that puts me out of the status quo. However I am very relieved to see an organization willing to take a chance and shake things up and do something new. I was telling Stanley that for this piece I want to have the monologue from A Raisin in The Sun be read by an actor much like spoken word. Within the context of the monologue that I have been working off of with my dancer and getting back ground insight into the minds of the characters from Stanley I noticed that having just text alone would not be enough to suffice this project. Needed to do something more so I told Stanley that I envision base, percussions and cello sneaking in and out of the background. Comparable to Mingus or cars been stuck in traffic jam blarring their horns. Only after I had completed the choreographic end with my dancer Michael Montgomery did I get in contact with Mr. David Molina a freelance music producer whom just got back from a project at Yale. Molina, Stanley and I spoke about what I had in mind for the dance so that musically speaking I will be able to set up the right tone and atmosphere for the piece to exist. We planned to meet later the following week in his studio to knock out the recording process. Originally a female actress read the monologue but it did not match what I was going for. I had Stanly read the whole entire rehearsal process and settled my movement in his deep baritone voice. Made sense to use him for the recording too. At the studio I had Stanley read a few times with some voice inflections with certain words to give it a lil more punch. I even got to do some beat boxing (my strange breath heavy attempts) and screaming falsetto that will sneak in and out the music. I’m glad that I have the trust from the director for full artistic range because I had him doing some funny lil things:) Today I looked online and the Gala is completely sold out. I will have the honor of having the opportunity to show the old mayor of SF Willie Brown and the current mayor Gavin Newsome my work and that’s pretty dope. The same night I have the same solo being performed in a different venue with other dancers/choreographers from the SF bay area. The only difference is that im having female dance the part that was originally choreographed for a man. Everyone who could not make it to the gala will have the chance to see the same piece danced and I suggest that you all go because im very proud of the work.
The end of the month I will be dancing in my 1st 20minute joint titled "MicroMachines and Dinosaurs" more on that later along with some other surprises that will be traveling me and Alex Jenkins to the east coast. All I will say about that is that it’s "NUTTY".
Keep on keeping on!
B
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