Workshops

The two videos below document Dave Burrell‘s workshop at the Painted Bride Arts Center, and his subsequent interview on the experience.

Khalil Munir reflects on the workshops with Dave Burrell:

But it seemed like that day, at the Bride, it seemed like he was so free. And I’ve never seen a man’s hands work a piano the way he worked the piano. It seemed like he used his whole hand – both hands – on the piano. And it reminded me of tapping in the sense that, hoofers, we use our whole foot. Or the whole shoe. We’re not just using our heel and our toe. Plus, sometimes we’re using the side of our foot, or the inside of our foot, or the whole foot, or the toe-to-heel. We’re rolling our ankles. So when I saw that, I thought, “This is amazing…”

So when he was playing, I didn’t negate my impulse, I got up, and I just went in the corner, because I didn’t want to disturb anybody’s business. So I went in the corner, and I started dancing to what he was playing. And it felt like we were having a conversation. It was very freeing. It was a very freeing experience. It was awesome.

The three following videos document the exercises with Emmanuelle Delpech, conducted at the Maas building.

Germaine Ingram shares her thoughts about the impacts of working with Emmanuelle Delpech:

I think it had a real impact on the way that we addressed the work in Heaven’s Dew. Well, just about everything in Heaven’s Dew required that, because so much of it was improvised, in order for it to have a power we really had to be present for one another; I think even more present for one another than for the audience. And I think it was some of the work we did with Manu that helped us be present for one another, find that connection with one another, and it was the audience seeing that authentic connection, not something composed or crafted or structured, just sort of an honest responsiveness to one another, that had impact and felt real for them.

The following two videos document workshops led by Peter DiMuro at the Johnson House in Philadelphia:

Khalil Munir recounts a profound moment during the Johnson House workshops:

I have a story about that. It’s horrible, though. We’re doing this wonderful work. You know, we’re exploring. And it’s right on Germantown Avenue, so you hear cars going up and down the street. And we happened to be inside one of the bedrooms. And here we were, rolling under the bed, rolling on the floor, or pressing our bodies against the walls. It was a wonderful exploration. And at the time their was a hiphop song that I hate that came on, and it totally broke my concentration in the moment. We were doing this beautiful work in this historical space, and down the street in this car, with this amplification that was almost like a stadium, but it was outside of his car, and it was blaring – blaring this music. So you have this beautifulness going on upstairs, and then on the street you hear, “All I want for my birthday is a big-booty hoe.” And it was just like, juxtaposition. It was like, wow. We were doing this work in this space that was a spot for the Underground Railroad, and then you have along street level this ignorance that’s blaring out of this person’s car. So it was the total opposite ends of the spectrum, because it kind of pulled me. Like, look how far we’ve come, but look where we still are in terms of growth and development as artists and people. Because that person is an artist, too, you know. So what is their responsibility in the music that they’re making and they’re putting out for the masses? Hundreds of thousands of people heard this song, and, you know, they’re rocking to it. But it’s crazy… but again, that’s an experience I’ll never forget.

The following videos document Ananya Chatterjea and the Ananya Dance Theatre‘s workshop with the PLC:

The Kids…

Our sessions were often graced by the presence of one or more of the young children of four PLC members.  Welcoming the kids into our working sessions was a way to help the dancers reconcile our schedule with their childcare responsibilities.  It was also a way to feed the spirit of improvisation as the young ones found their own adventures in the studio space, inserted themselves into our improvisation scores, and interjected spontaneous–usually hilarious–critiques.