My Hair

I know I've posted a lot about hair issues - specifically to black women - in the past year, but I haven't gone into depth about my own hair journey (or lack thereof). Today I think it's appropriate though, as I just sat down in the chair at the hair salon, took bobby pins out of my bun and looked in the mirror to see the dry nest of hair messily stay in place atop my head, though nothing held it there. I pulled my wide tooth comb out of my purse (because the fine tooth combs they have would probably break) and let the stylist go to work. What a task. My roots are THICK. The hair is dry to the touch. The ends, ragged at best.

I get to this point, every 4 or so months. It's a cycle. After about 1.5-2 months of silky straight hair, which I am mostly able to maintain myself, I go through another month (most time 2) of a series of braids, buns, and periodic (when I can spare the money) blow outs, before I get another touch up and trim and start the cycle again. It started when I went away to college, when I had not yet found a hair dresser in New York and would wait to go home on breaks to have my mom do it. Then when I did find a place up here, it was a money issue -- not that it cost a lot -- but when your funds are consistently on low, you cut corners where you can: No bi weekly hair appointments.

The newest guy I've been dating casually told me the other day that he's never seen me with my hair out. "Noooo! That can't be true!" I insisted. He replied that my hair came out of a bun in theory only. He even asked, "How long is it?" I had to stop and think about it. I realized that we started seeing each other in the middle of my hair cycle - the part that starts the consistent buns and braids.

Part of why I wait so long to get my hair done is financial. Yes, my income is greater than in college, but so are my expenses, and so I practically live on the same shoe-string budget. It's also a practicality issue because it's my job to sweat my hair out every day. So after a point, if I'm not ready to get another relaxer, it's futile and a waste of money to blow it out, unless it's a special occasion.

I've contemplated natural styles, which would alleviate the sweat it out dilemma. I even thought about how getting a weave might also alleviate this same dilemma. But I can honestly say that I like my hair as is. Moreover, any financial dilemma I'm facing in this predicament would probably also be faced in either of those other options.

Maybe I'm afraid of change? Maybe I'm just lazy? Maybe I don't care that much? Maybe I care too much?
That's where I am with my hair. Off to the sink to rinse out these chemicals...

The Business of Me

Once upon a long long time ago somebody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

"A dancer and a teacher."

Mission Accomplished.

Baby Syd (with Stister and Brother) with dancing and teaching dreams.

What I also knew upon a long long time ago, was that I never wanted to work for any body else. My stister will tell you that I am too damn bossy, and my Auntie told me I'm always acting like somebody's mother. So there you go: I was meant to be the boss since like, forever.

So last year when I started living this whole real world life trying to make a career out of dancing with no place to live and only a grand in my bank account, I was really trying to figure out how to make this heah boss lady thing work. I mean, I had to work for SOMEbody to get the capital to survive... and I do. (Praise God! That job has been on lock down for about a year now.)

So I've entered Phase Two: Working for Me. Little by little, since last December really, I've been piecing it together. I tested the waters with my choreography and performances spring and early summer 2010. Then I stressed myself and my pockets out, resulting in me doing nothing (physical) this summer. Time pushed me back into everything in September, but I still didn't really know what or how I was going to do it.

Cue scene: 11 p.m. Syd on couch attempting to answer emails, schedule rehearsals, figure out how to raise money for upcoming show, find rehearsal space, write down choreography ideas, find that cd with those pictures to send the press lady, listen to voice mail when dancer decides not to come to rehearsal next day because not yet aware of rehearsal location... *tears sobs*

Seriously. I just cried. Trying to be Boss Lady: Artistic Director, Executive Director, Technical Director, Administrative Assistant, Costume Mistress, Publicist, Company Manager, and Development Director all at the same time was too much. Not to mention that office headquarters was my great futon. Desk? Coffee table (which also triples as a dinner table). Staff? Yeah, about that...

It was that cry though that allowed me to take ownership of the situation. It forced me to manifest that oh so quotable Jay Z line: "I'm not a business man/I'm a business, man." The NEXT day (yes that quickly) I acquired an arrangement for office space, and interviews for two interns. Today, I've got an operating administrative staff, an office space, a pro bono lawyer ready to help me choose and establish my business structure, two shows in the next month, a fund raising plan, and oh yeah, the ability to go to bed at 11 pm and dance and/or work out every day. I don't even think I ever used the word entrepreneur in a sentence referring to myself until... last night? But turns out that I am.

Could it be that dreams do come true? And that if you were born a boss, you can indeed be a boss?

Apparently so.

Subway Ride

I'm on the A train. The doors just opened at 42nd street. Two teens and a little boy, maybe 10?, step on. They're carrying their boom box negotiating where they're going to start their show. They decide on the center of the train, right next to me.

"SHOWtime!" They holler in unison. "It's showtime." They fumble over their initial claps and stumble over their initial steps. Oh no, I think to myself. Are they gonna be broke down, bootleg break dancers?
On more than one occasion, I've seen a group of kids perform on the train and it's so bad - they're such novices - they really just need to go back home, practice, and start again.

They get it together: clap/clap clap clap. The boys clear the space and the 10 year old takes center stage. He starts with a coffee grinder and manipulates himself into a handstand. I watch in wonder at the core control and strength he has to hold and manipulate his handstand on an express train during rush hour. He stays close to the ground inverting himself with different balances on his hands and forearms.

One of the teens took the floor. He was sweaty. They must be jumping from train to train doing this routine over and over. I can't help but think of how dirty his hands and clothes must be. Everyone knows the subways are the dirtiest places in New York City.

I look up to see a man videoing the show on his cell phone. He wears skinny jeans that bare his ankles. I can't help but notice the huge Louis bag on his lap. He, like I, thinks these kids are worth watching. Neither of us put our money where our eyes are though.

The train pulls into the 34th street station. The doors open and a woman who must have exited at another end of the car reaches her hand back in the center doors to hand the other teen a few dollars.
These kids are doing what I do. They dance for money. I wonder how much they make? Wouldn't be surprised if it was more than me.

Then I think about that 10 year old. He's got skills. When he's grown, he's gonna be bad. Really bad. Who taught him? Did he learn from watching?

My 10 year-olds today pulled a coup on me. They are so whiny and unmotivated. They have very little respect for authority. There's little interest in formal dance training. Discipline is absolutely a foreign concept. They just want me to turn on the radio and let them jump around for 45 min.

Maybe I should... And go dance on the subway.

Gay Swans

Note: I apologize in advance if anyone is offended by the language used in this post. The word choice is purposeful, but not meant to offend.

Tonight I saw the gayest dance ever. Ever.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is having a run at City Center and I went to see it mainly to spend some quality time with a mentor. So glad I was with her when I saw it so that we could whisper our critical analysis to each other during the performance. At the end I wanted to scream and cry (which I practically did, frantic hands and all). I think I might call this feeling outrage.

If you are familiar with Mark Morris' spoof of The Nutcracker, The Hard Nut, then you can get an idea for the over the top, 60's inspired costuming, sets, props and choreography. I almost felt like Bourne tackled the classic story ballet Swan Lake because The Nutcracker had already been taken. Before I rip this a part however, I do want to say that it was danced beautifully. The dancers did what they were told exceptionally well, and all the technical aspects worked harmoniously to produce a flawless fully staged ballet.

With that said, the narrative which only had a vague connection to the original story, was essentially a gay man's coming out story. Actually, not even.

The ballet begins with a young prince awaking in bed to a host of hand servants who wash and dress him like Prince Hakeem in "Coming to America." It was definitely akin to the memorable quote: "The royal penis is clean." He is then presented with the Queen all around the palace, although not having read the program prior to the curtain going up, I actually was not sure if she was the Queen at all. Their relationship was conspicuously ambiguous and I felt like she was the Prince's lover, more than a mother.

The Prince ends up getting distracted by this star-struck hippy-dippy chick and there's a whole divertissement scene where he takes her as a date to the opera (to see an obviously horrible dance about The Butterfly, The Lumber Jack, and The Demon Tree Branches). At the opera, Hippy-dippy Chick's uncouth behavior reaches a height and shows her as a foil to the Queen. As if we did not know the Queen was perfect already (on a pedestal, maybe virginal? frigid?), we see the Prince and the Queen back at the palace in their all white night clothes. They engage in a strangely romantic pas de deux where the Prince continuously chases, grasps and clutches her, only to be shunned and pushed away. Still it seems like a game to her and all I could think sitting in my seat was: OEDIPUS!

Shunned and sad, the Prince finds himself on the street, then on to a seedy night club filled with couples go go dancing in 60s garb. It's a typical social scene where men and women are out in hopes of going home with one another. Too bad, too sad for the Prince. He instead finds himself in the street again, rejected. Wandering to a park, suddenly a host of dancing swans appear. (Yes, it happens that randomly.) Man swans to be exact. With feathery fringe-y capri pants and bare chests. ALL of their swan movement motifs doubled for wacking and vogueing. Honestly, if it weren't for the pasty white chests to match their swan pants you would have thought Paris was burning. Their broken dangling wrists signified flamboyance, while their directed dramatic stares toward the Prince foreshadowed their menace. The Prince indulges them and engages in a homoerotic fantasy.

After intermission, I thought the gayness might dissipate a bit. Wrong. Instead it intensified exponentially via melodrama. The scene is a royal ball and the short of the story is this: a man shows up in tight leather pants dancing like a raging bull. He puts his hands down the front of his pants and pulls out a whip. Yes. A WHIP! Hello phallus! He then proceeds to literally mesmerize and hypnotize everyone in the room, man and woman and Prince and Queen, with his di... I mean whip. Everyone in the room is confused. It is unclear who is gay or straight and all the gender roles are bent, though the obvious inspiration for the movement is Spanish Flamenco dancing which has clear traditional gender roles. Again, the scene ends with a rejected Prince, this time being carried away to his room. (Starting to see a pattern here?)

The lighting design at this moment in the show was perfect. The Prince is in his nightclothes, and in comes frigid mother dressed in white, followed by a dozen nurses and a doctor also in white. "Is he in the insane asylum?" I asked my mentor. The front light cast large shadows on the starkly white backdrop. His mother's shadow was so big she was literally walking all over him. The nurses and the doctor also did the same, until they put him to sleep (did they give him drugs?) and put him back in the bed.

It is then in his dreams that he becomes taunted by the gay swans. They pop up from under the bed. They appear suddenly from behind the headboard. They slide in from the wings. The lead swan at one point pushes his way up from inside the Prince's bed, as if he were a stripper popping out of a birthday cake. The shadows of the swans become more and more menacing and taunting. And every time the music comes to a dramatic build and you think it's going to be over, another freaking swan jumps out of no where. This scene might have been ten or fifteen minutes of menacing vogueing swans shaking their tail feathers all over the place teasing the Prince. And then...

He died.

Yes, you read right. He died. WTF?! The Queen comes to mourn him, but the air of melodrama is so thick at this point that it's almost laughable to think that she even cares to come cry over his body. While the audience leaped to their feet for a standing ovation, I sat in outrage on the verge of tears.

Why?

Let's quickly recap the trajectory of the work: 1. Prince is helpless and in love with his mother. 2. Prince is consistently rejected from heterosexual interaction. 3. Prince is courted by gay swans, and indulges in fantasy (because the swans give him the "you know you want it" look). 4. Prince is taunted and confused by a hyper-masculine down-low whip guy 5. Prince can't shake the gay swans in his dreams (therefore he can not shake his own gayness), so a las he must die.

In the wake of so much current death and violence related to gay teens who are victims because of their sexuality, I don't understand how anyone could applaud the ballet. This story is a true story. This story is a sad heart-breaking story. But this story was not presented so that we could empathize for the young man who does not know how to accept his own sexuality, let a lone have society accept it. It was too over the top. It was too flamboyant. It was too... gay. To the point where I felt like this narrative was being made fun of. This is not something to make fun of!

What is more, apparently since this ballet was originally staged in 1995 it has never been off stage for more than a few months. It's been playing around the world non-stop for fifteen years! Do you mean to tell me that people have indulged in the making-light of confused gays for fifteen years?!

I'm honestly confused. Do audiences not see the overt gayness of this ballet? And if they do, do they clap and keep coming back for more because they are sympathizing with the narrative? Or simply because it was good dancing? Shouldn't we expect more from good choreography and dancing? Shouldn't art be healing? Isn't this work doing the exact opposite of that? If you've seen it, do you have a different interpretation of the narrative?

Discuss.

Checking In

I've disappeared from the blogosphere and twitterverse a bit in the past couple of weeks, posting on both platforms sporadically at best.

It's because I'm busy. Really busy. Overwhelmed busy. I had a little breakdown the other night, and through the tears came a new-found motivation and determination to make my dream happen. (Much love to New Roomy for her life coach counseling skills.)

I've got all kinds of work to do all the time. Work I don't get paid for, but hopefully I will in the near future. (Dear God, please. I just want to get paid to make dances.)

So I am checking in to say that I'm still here. And when I can make the time to let you all know what's on my mind, I will. :)

TV Blacks

New Roomy made a discovery recently. Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from the Fresh Prince) is not African-American, though he played one, an "oreo"* to be exact, for so long on tv. His family is from Trinidad and Tobago, and he was born and raised in Washington Heights (a largely latino, specifically Dominican neighborhood in NYC). She made another discovery this morning. Jordan on the Bernie Mac Show has the last name Suarez! (Jeremy Suarez from California.) I'll throw in another, just for kicks. Soledad O'Brien who represents for black people on CNN hosting all of their Blacks in America specials is half-Cuban and half-Australian.

If you were to discern the racial and ethnic demographics of the United States from the content of television programming you would probably think that all black Americans are African-Americans (the descendants of slaves, not new generations of immigrant African families). Contrary to the actual ethnicities of the black actors, television would have us to believe that we are a monolith with the same slave story - and while this is the truth for a lot of black Americans, it is not true for all.

It wasn't until I came to college, and more specifically college in New York, where I met black people who not only identified their nationality as something other than American (not necessarily excluding American though), but celebrated it! I didn't know that Dominican people could be dark skinned and got perms. I never saw anybody rep hard for Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, or Jamaica until I went to the Labor Day West Indian parade for the first time. Hell, I didn't even know what the term "West Indian" meant. Ever heard of Curasol? Yeah, me neither. But I met dutch speaking black folks from there too. I remember talking on the phone to my mother one day my first year at Barnard. I was telling her how all the food staff in the dining hall were black but they had an accent that I couldn't identify. They were not "regular black."

Granted New York is somewhat of an anomaly. I always say it's more of an international city than an American city. Think of places like London, Accra, Rio de Janeiro - cities certainly representative of their country and culture, but also representative of the tourists and immigrants. Regardless, this is the place where I discovered that all black people are not the same. It's certainly not that this diversity of black people doesn't exist in Baltimore, but the culture of the city is severely segregated and in general people choose a side: black or white. Even latinos or asians who certainly are their own groups with plenty of diversity within them would often be lumped into a category - latinos black, asians white.

I remember in 7th grade there was a school project where we had to trace our family history back to its roots and bring in a food dish representative of that culture. Now thankfully, my family has very detailed records of where we came from. We know we were on the Mosley plantation in Louisiana, and we could trace to what Caribbean island we were on before that - Barbados. Before that, was well, somewhere in West Africa. Because all of my white counterparts could say they came from Poland or Greece or England or Russia or wherever, I wanted a different country too. Even my best black girl friend at the time could bring in a dish from her dad's home country, Trinidad. And so, my parents and I researched what foods are popular in Barbados. We chose fried sweet plantains, found a recipe and went on a hunt for the "big bananas" at our local supermarket. I'd never eaten plantains before a day in my life and it certainly wasn't representative of my heritage. Now that I look back on it, as stereotypical as it might have been, I should have brought in fried chicken. I'm sure it's what we had for dinner the night before, what my dad would have preferred to prepare, and it's probably what Mosley's of the slave era were eating too.

My story is the fried chicken story and I should have represented it then. But it's not the only black story, though television might have you believe so. Think about it. The black culture largely represented on tv is African-American culture. The Cosby Show. A Different World. Living Single. Fresh Prince. Martin. Girlfriends. The Bernie Mac Show. Everybody Hates Chris. Everything Tyler Perry. Even the satirical The Boondocks. We could go on with this list for quite some time.While it's a diverse in terms of situations and characters in terms of age groups, lifestyles/economic status, there is little deviation in terms culture and heritage.

If America is the melting pot, why don't we recognize and celebrate our diverse and divergent heritages within the black community? We are united by our skin color. That will never change. Before anyone ever has a conversation with me what they see is my skin. If I'm standing next to a Dominican, who's standing next to a Haitian, who's standing next to a Cuban we will all be treated the same because our brown skin looks the same, regardless of the specificity of our ethnicity.


But I don't blame other people for this monolithic view of black America. I blame us. Now that black people hold positions of power and decision-making in the media and entertainment industries, why don't we represent ourselves in more diverse ways? Why don't we know or see how different our individual stories are? Can we produce images of ourselves, and create programming that reflects these individual heritages?; that highlights our differences, and then reveals the rich culture created when all different types of blacks are brought together in America?

Thoughts?

*For those who don't know, an "oreo" is what some black people call other black people when they "act white." They are black on the outside, white on the inside.