EDITORS’ LETTERS
We’re calling it 30/30, and I must acknowledge that it’s definitely taken from Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen’s dance entitled 50/50. (Thanks, Mette, for letting us appropriate the title. I know we didn’t ask, but I hope you might approve.) We’re using this idea of 30/30 to refer to Movement Research’s 30th Anniversary, 1978–2008, and a two-part anniversary portfolio consisting of 30 answers to a survey question put to various members of the dance field. It’s an opportunity for MR to stir up some thinking about the larger cultural influence on research and practice in the contemporary dance field. It’s a small gesture, but one that I think gives an inkling of important reflection on the turn of the century.
I was recently speaking with the legendary performer Penny Arcade, and she profoundly explained how the fin de siècle actually takes about 16 years of the next century to finish. So, with eight years left, perhaps it’s a good time to start thinking about what we really want to carry with us into the full body of the 21st century and what is best left behind. Or in the post-Bush era, which may or may not come to be, is it too soon to start talking about “No Dance Left Behind?” I hope not. (For those of you unfamiliar, take a Google at Bush’s eponymous education program, No Child Left Behind.) The 43rd American president, who has left an important mark on world history, like it or not, carries the most influence in our survey. By the time we go to press with our next issue and 30/30 Part 2, the United States of America will have supposedly elected number 44. After the election of 2000, one can’t be so sure; but the potential cultural and political context of Part 2 will be dramatically different. I don’t have a crystal ball to look into November or the next eight years, but I do have this platform, and the best that I can say is “No Vote Left Behind.”
Let us who are eligible get out and vote on November 4, 2008, and let’s hope everyone is welcomed.
All the best,
Trajal
In 2004, Ralph Lemon presented Come Home Charley Patton, the final installment of his Geography Trilogy, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was a complex exploration of the American South and this country’s history of racial violence, as well as an inquiry into the wonders and limits of a concert stage. I wasn’t able to see the work at BAM, but I sought it out a few years later at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Being in a library distances one from the live event. At the NYPL, one checks one’s bags and passes several security guards before filling out two forms, handing them to the librarian, and then watching the mediated work on a monitor, in bright lights with headphones on. It’s an unlikely place to experience the affective dimensions of dance. Yet by the end of Charley Patton– as Lemon performed a broken down version of the buck dance amidst an onslaught of water from a fire-hose – I found myself in tears. I’m still trying to unfold the many layers of that image, fraught with a national history of violence and protest, as well as dogged determination, embodied memories, and incredible grace.
Putting together this issue’s portfolio on Ralph Lemon has deepened my admiration for his artistry and presented fresh aspects of his work to consider. In limited space, the portfolio reflects on Lemon’s company ventures in the early nineties, as well as the Geography Trilogy, his drawings of James Baldwin, and his current collaborations with Walter Carter, a 100-year-old man living in Yazoo County, Mississippi. This range was made possible by the contributions of Anthony Allen, Frank Oudeman, Peggy Phelan, and Katherine Profeta. In distinct ways, their photographs and writing illuminate the complexity and rigor of Lemon’s work, as well as its immense integrity and heart. A special thank you goes to Ralph for his generosity throughout the process. Although transcribing interviews is generally a tedious task, listening to Ralph’s thoughtful ruminations from Paris (played at slow speed on my living room stereo) was a much-appreciated joy.
Danielle Goldman
