Call it a sign of old age, a bad week, or effective choreography: tears bounded into my eyes when I saw “Class†at the MOVE! Performance last night at the Tacoma School of the Arts. There was the wee little kid, soloing without self-consciousness, at the end of Josh Rizeberg’s spoken word piece that representatives from the Adult, Young Adult, and Ballet I classes also danced to. I felt like Sienna Williams, aged 5, represented the completion of the circle that the legacy of MLKBallet demonstrated: bringing freedom of physical expression to all those who are dedicated. That dedication spans age, physicality, race and gender, but doesn’t have to be limited by income level.
And the MOVE! shows work as double entities: they entertain, and they sustain. And there's two more shows today â€" 2 and 7 p.m.
“We’ve gotten it down to where, through producing shows, we can sustain ourselves,†explains Director Alexa Folsom-Brown to me last week, proud of the fact that “our income is directly related to how hard we’re working and creating.â€
She says, speaking for all at MLKBallet, “I want to work for it, I don’t want to be dependent on anyone.â€
Even still, thorough collaborations and partnerships, the fledgling ballet company can put on shows like last night's, which brought Can Can Castaways and North West Dance Syndrome down from Seattle, and a screen projected Joel Myers â€" whose initial Joel Show introduced me to the SOTA Theatre and the potential dynamism of dance, back two winters ago, sowing the seeds of the infant MLKBallet â€" not to mention the talents of Rizeberg, The School of the Arts dancers, MLKBallet dancers, and a sneak peek at the Metro Parks’ "Wizard of Oz," due to hit the stage in January.
High points for me, the dynamism of Tacoma boy turned Seattle success Ben Meersman exploding onstage in leaping spins, echoed by Alaisha Jefferson’s dynamic presence as the Witch in the "Wizard of Oz" teaser. Interestingly, both dancers discovered dance in their teens; the power and magnetism they both exude onstage bodes well for both futures.
Another amazing dancer was thought to have begun in her later teens, only she was younger than her teacher initially thought. Vorece Miller, the red-skirted dancer in the Sam Cooke piece “Stories: Soul, Cry, and Well†danced with an assured maturity that MLKBallet Artistic Director Kate Monthy thought was appropriate for 15 or 16 year olds, and as a teacher she pushed accordingly; only recently Monthy discovered her pupil was merely 13-years-old. “She pulled it off,†Monthy said with a proud grin.
I found the whole evening to be, as Folsom-Brown suggested in our earlier interview, “good quality movement for under $20,†and I found it to be much more: I learned about the possibility of entertainment for future road trips to Seattle at the Can Can, as well as a slightly more outre’ endeavor called the Little Red Studio from friends Roland and Cherie. And most importantly, I felt the collaborative spirit that Tacoma Arts can evolve into.
“Everything is going in a forward direction,†Folsom-Brown asserts as we talked about MLKBallet. But I saw, tonight at MOVE!, more than forward: as the Northwest Dance Syndrome worked their “Crosswalks†early in the evening, I saw what I love now about dance: that forward contains many more directions than just straight ahead in the traditional fashion, and I can’t wait to explore the future â€" and see how it develops â€" as MLKBallet grows, and MOVE! Grows with it. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler
Tank the wonder-Springer was looking scruffy. More than that, he was dragging in bucket loads of mud on the fur of his paws, and his nails, which had already removed most of the Swedish Finish on our hardwoods, were beginning to gouge the concrete of the sidewalks.
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