A whirlwind trip to California and back, and though it was lovely to go, I have to say that Cleveland's starting to feel a bit more like home.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that I'm working hard on bringing a bit of the West Coast out for a visit: a few of my favorite DJs -- FreQ Nasty and that whacky, wild, totally purple-icious crew the Fungineers -- will be wingin' their way from out west to join us for STEP OUT, Cleveland: Shake off the Rust, a program I'm putting together with LAND studio on behalf of the Cleveland Public Library.
In addition, we'll be welcoming dance professionals from across the county to speak about storytelling and shaping community through dance -- a topic that gets at the very core about what makes places like the Bay Area so exciting and nourishing for energetic and creative young people, and why it's so awesome -- and significant for a Cleveland that's intent on attracting young folks back home -- that we're starting to welcome more events like this!
I remember when I first experienced Bay Area Dance Week -- an entire ten days during which studios opened their doors and accepted people from all backgrounds to come practice. I was astounded because -- growing up in Cleveland and beginning my "career" as a dancer quite late -- I felt there was really no option, or even point, really, to someone my age starting to learn. Adult-beginner classes were few and far between, and even when one was found, it was still disheartening to find that "adult" often included twelve year olds who could throw their leg up over their heads. If you weren't destined to be a professional dancer, at some point you just stopped dancing.
The Bay Area, by contrast, offered worlds more in terms of all-level classes -- and all disciplines, as well: aerial silks, trapeze, hooping, strange new forms like Contact Improv and Ecstatic Dance. Even more miraculously, dancers blurred the line between "audience" and "performer," "professional" and not. Hobbyists would get good enough to start teaching classes on their own, or even open small studios as side businesses. Going into a club, it wasn't unusual to see people hooping, spinning poi, performing acro yoga or just dancing so skillfully that, even if they weren't hired to perform, they certainly good have been. I wrote a cover article for the San Francisco Bay Guardian about an unhappy, overweight anthropology grad student who turned her life around by re-branding herself Hoop Girl. She now helps women all over make the same transformation. In the Bay, dance is practiced joyously in communities, and taken seriously as a way of life that transcends boundaries.
When I was first asked if I could help put a dance program together for LAND, these are all the things I thought about. I wanted to nourish that same feeling of permission to inhabit the body, permission to practice dance.
I'm happy to say that, in reaching out to the dance community to put this program together, I have found that it is already happening here in Cleveland. All those same art forms -- poi, cirque, burlesque and more -- are alive and well (and will be represented at STEP OUT)! The independent studios exists. The community is ready to move together! I'm so honored and lucky to have found them, and excited to see everyone together, November 8th and 9th at the Global Center for Health Innovation!
