Connections and Influences

I went to high school, DeWitt Clinton, with a fellow Bronxite whom you may not know by name but, if you listen to a lot of music, have probably heard often. His name is Jerry Jemmott and he is a bass player who, after being discovered by King Curtis, has worked with everyone from Aretha Franklin to the Allman Brothers and has been known as "The Groovemaster". What I didn't know, until recently, is that he started out, at the age of five, as a tap dancer with Mary Bruce's Star Buds in Harlem! It's always interesting to me to find out about a creative artist's background to see what influenced their work, either as something they did as a child or what shifts they make in their careers. I always encourage young tap dancers to study stuff other than tap to enrich what's in their bodies, minds and souls, that will in turn enhance what they do on stage. There are many tap dancer who do have a rich background. One tapper I know did flamenco before getting into tap and another I know went from tap to flamenco! Others came to tap from other dance forms, some are also musicians and some are actors. Two online events last week had me reflecting on my own jambalaya of artistic/creative experiences that inform what it is that I do.

On Friday, I watched Bill Irwin do an online version of On Beckett, his exploration of the work of Samuel Beckett, recorded at the Irish Repertory Theater, where he did it live in 2018. Okay, my connections to this. My base as a performer is mime, which I studied in the 1970s at HB Studios in the West Village. A group of us there at HB formed a mime company, Garden Variery Mime Theater, and performed around NYC in various and sundry situations. With the confidence I gained from that experience, I started trying other movement disciplines like, fencing, contact improvisation, modern dance, a tentative return to tap dance (which I had done as a youngster) and...clowning. After seeing Irwin's The Regard of Flight in 1983, I was inspired to do my own semi-solo clown show, Moving About, a year later at Eleo Pomare's (hold on to that name for later) Vital Arts Center in Chelsea. Someone (Jonah Salz) who saw it offered me a scholarship to participate in a summer program he was heading in Kyoto, Japan, which I attended and studied the comic Japanese theater form, Kyogen. One of the things I performed there was a Kyogen style

Act Without Words I - Kyoto, 1984

version of Beckett's mime piece, Act Without Words I. At this point in time, I was getting involved in the "downtown" NY dance scene, and wound up in Wexford, Ireland, a few years after my show. A choreographer friend of mine (Martha Bowers, who now heads Hook Arts Media) set up and ran a residency there for a few weeks, where she, I and another dancer performed and taught. I even created a James Brown dance number for Irish housewives! The day before seeing Irwin's online piece, I hung out with some friends in my neighborhood who often play fiddle music, much of which is Irish, on their porch and talked a bit with them about my Wexford adventure. So, seeing Irwin the next night just brought back a lot of stuff. Good stuff!

Now, when I came home last Thursday, after hanging with those friends on the porch, I watched the latest episode of a weekly YouTube series entitled, Black Dance Stories, that has been running since this past June. Each week the host, Charmaine Warren, introduces two Black dancers as her guests. Each dancer talks about their work/history, then the two talk with each other and then Charmaine jumps in for a three way conversation. It's great because I get to know about some dancers I'm unfamiliar with and also see dancers I know and some I've worked with, and there are dancers from all genres. Last week the guests were Maurice Chestnut and Dyane Harvey-Salaam. Maurice and I know each other from the world of tap. I'm not sure when I first saw him, but it must have been when he was with the NJ Tap Ensemble as a youngster. Even though he's in his 30s now, I think of him as "youngster". But Dyane I know of from way back! I first saw her in the 1970s when she danced with Eleo Pomare's (told you he'd pop up again) dance company. One of the works Eleo mounted on her was a solo entitled, Roots, which I remember knocked me out. The 70s was a time of dance explosion in New York City and I went to see a lot, and there were many Black dance companies making their mark. I had a Sony portapak, a portable video deck with camera, and shot some dance video then and even shot (if memory serves correct) some footage of Dyane in a loft rehearsal space belonging to choreographer, Ron Pratt, who was running the Alpha-Omega 1-7 Theatrical Dance Company. Dyane's husband, Abdel R. Salaam danced with that company and I think I shot some video of the company rehearsing with him in it. The couple founded and run Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company and he now heads DanceAfrica at BAM. So, seeing two generations represented by Maurice and Dyane, that also represented two of my worlds of interest spoke to me. To add to this, a few moments ago I googled Maurice's name to check on when he was with NY Tap Ensemle and found out that at the age of five he was taught dance by Alfred Gallman who, in the 1970s, danced with Pepsi Bethel's dance company. I remember him because I studied with Pepsi and took photos and video of his company!  It's all too much sometimes...the connections.

I often perform solo, but I am never alone because all of the above, and more, is always right with me. 

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Peace, 

 Hank

Jerry Jemmott kicking off King Curtis' Memphis Soul Stew

Black Dance Stories

Bill Irwin on Samuel Beckett