I loved this performance, really I did. Savion Glover is one his own wave length and still searching and exploring and it took me by complete surprise as I sat there in my seat in the orchestra at T 13 last night, Saturday just after 8 PM on March 31st, 2012 at the Warner Theatre.
It was great to watch the people arrive : more arrived closer to 8 P.M. and I loved looking all around me and at the people that were guests like my family and me and at those that worked there. The chamber that we were in all guilded gold and all and speaking volumes of wear-and-tear and history in itself was quite a treat and a lot for me to assimilate and digest. I did not mind. I listened to conversations all around us, too.
Vince and his son Will came in and walked past us to our right and I called out three or so times : " Vince ". He finally heard me and turned around and smiled and said he would come after they found their seats up front. They did and I introduced them both to my wife, daughter and son and we chatted briefly before they headed off in search of refreshments?
At one point my son saw someone with a box of popcorn and he immediately said that he wanted one, too and he was off in search of one. He got one, the box was passed down to us all and we each had some and then it headed back to him and I am sure that he finished it all off without a hitch.
The lights started to dim, the curtain rose and there was a solitary figure in profile on a slightly elevated stage in a hood and around him in front just off to the right were some smaller figures in hoods, too. A voice spoke to us all in the audience briefly : four or five lines and made some statements and then the figure on the stage in profile to us all with his right side visible started to tap with his feet and the show started. The smaller hooded figures simply stood there and the only sounds to be heard were those from the figure's feet on the stage : the thumps, bumps, scrapes and scratches. He moved his feet around and sometimes appeared to use them like two brushes or pencils, pieces of chalk : whatever - as he moved them in circles and fluid motions as if he was painting or telling a story in sounds that mimicked words and dialogue and music and dance, too. Basically he used his two feet to tell his stories ( or simply go on his personal safaris ) with the sounds that he could tap out like Morris Code , or like drums, or like his voice and his body that he could make us aware of through his shoes that talk for him, his sould, his heart, his guts - through his two feet.
It's a whole lot to digest and it all hit me like a whirlwind with a force of sounds that swept past me like a howling wind : like Bob Dylan's " Idiot Wind "! I was startled, I was tired having worked all day long selling wine at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits where I manage the wine store. So I was a bit wanting to sleep in my seat and yet I could not : this hooded figure in profile with his two feet tapping away on the floor of this small stage kept shaking me awake - kept jarring my brain, kept pressing on me to get me to listen better and to fit the pieces together in a meaningful way for me that could then become meaningful to me.
That's what Savion Glover wanted, that's what he was doing : speaking to himself first and then to me and all of us secondly as he tapped away!
I never got a chance to finish this and for that I am sorry. It's now Monday, August 5th, 2013 at 11:28AM here in northern Virginia my home on my day-off and it's one of the most beautiful days so far this summer with low humidity, baby blue skies, a breeze, puffy white clouds scattered up above and awash in this delicate blue : the sun filtering the blue, the sun's shine delineating and accentuating the brilliant white of these floating white castles . I'm loving it , much like I loved watching Savion Glover dance.
THE ONE real moment for me in all of this is when I started to imagine Savion dancing to the beat of John Mayall's classic song from way WAY , long ago : " California ." I do not know if Savion knows this song or not but I must say that I believe he does and that, in some way it must have influenced his dancing on this wonderful evening. I love both. Cheers and bravo Savion. Hope our paths cross again soon some day. Cheers, Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn check out my : chatpoetry.blogspot.com page as well. Happy Monday! TONY 8/5/13
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