Reach

What does it look like for an ethnic Lebanese, Canadian born, white presenting, young boy to fall in love with an American art form, whose roots, elders, and tradition are held most truthfully in the Black community? What does it look like for that same boy to be grafted into that tradition by the recognized elders of the community?

Every step becomes an act of embodied learning. A celebration of the love received, and an encounter of the pain my friends had endured in their own lives. For the root of the dance is joy, the exuberance of movement that counters every pain of life. As if to say, “I am still alive!”

Every elder I encountered shared their words and their movement with me. They showed me. Every one of them affecting me to varying degrees, but all meaningfully…from my first teacher Chris Collins to the list that follows…

Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Ted Levy, Jimmy Slyde, Henry LeTang, Bunny Briggs, LeRoy Myers, Henry “Phace” Roberts, Ernest “Brownie” Brown, James “Buster” Brown, Tina Pratt, Mable Lee, Lon Chaney, Dianne Walker, Barbara Duffy…

Even those I never actually met, but became connected and committed to through the practice…Steve Condos and Chuck Green.

As I dance, you’ll see them. Their sensitivity. Their ideas. Their wisdom.

Many of my friends are no longer here. As Jimmy Slyde used to say, "They haven't left us. They've left something for us." Now when I dance I reach. I reach for the memories of their voices, the time we shared, the wisdom they imparted. It all is lodged there in my body.

Sometimes it is buried under the burdens of the day, the confusions of life. But I trust that it all is there. And as I move, it resurfaces. Every word. Every step.