#dance heginbotham

Lindsey Jones and John Eirich in Rockefellers, Dance Heginbotham, Harkness Dance Festival, March 2018. © Julie Lemberger.

Exploring “Woolgathering”: Patti Smith’s Spoken-Word Opera “Woolgathering” is a captivating collection of prose poems authored by the iconic Patti Smith, renowned for her influence as a singer-songwriter and punk pioneer. Released in 1992, this slim volume serves as a poignant memoir reflecting on the intricacies of childhood—specifically, the imaginative realm often inhabited by poets. Smith…

Young Soya-Soya dancers perform in Jailolo.

Children from Jailolo dance to “Jingle Bells” on Easter Sunday

Dance Heginbotham at The Watermill Center, 2013

On Thursday, March 17, DH traveled through the wild roads and traffic of Manila to the Philippine High School for the Arts. As a seasoned New York Driver, I thought I understood what it meant to drive with healthy aggression, but I was humbled and terrified by the free-for-all that is the Filipino highway.  (FYI, our driver's call sign was HOT ROD) 

 But after the impressive speeds (and quick stops) of the highway, we got off of the main road, and started up smaller and smaller roads until we were climbing our way up windy mountain roads to the city on a hill that is the PHSA. 

 We knew we were in good hands when we turned a corner, and started seeing the individual faces of each DH member (production and music staff included) on 8 foot tall vinyl banners, hung with great care on the lamp posts leading up to the school! 

 Upon arrival, it felt like we were Big Winners on the greatest game show of all time, with students cheering, handing us the most beautiful bouquets of Birds of Paradise, singing and playing for us, and generally providing the shot of energy we all needed that early in the morning. 

 In the afternoon at this magical school of creativity, I was given the opportunity to lead a music workshop with about 25 music majors at the school. Having mostly accompanied dance classes up til this point in the tour, this was a most welcome opportunity! I enlisted the help of Team Clave (Company Manager Adrienne Bryant and Step Dancer and Rhythmic Force of Nature Lindsey Jones) and we headed to our classroom. 

 What a sharp bunch of young people!! We played some great rhythm games, passing around beats and rhythms from one person to the next, creating composite patterns and group jams of all sorts. Lindsey taught us a more advanced step dance combination that had the walls shaking of our wood-floored classroom on the mountain. 

  Dance Heginbotham teaching music and rhythm at PHSA @usembassymanila @dancemotionusa @DanceHegi pic.twitter.com/HGkvTHQb58

— Sheila C (@Shei_Tweets)

March 17, 2016

After a short accordion demonstration, I taught the whole class (Team Clave included) some tactics for group improvising. With such a short time with great musicians, I tend to feel like my biggest impact can be to give them tools that they can use to harness their own abilities when I leave. I could have taught specific technique, but by the way these students played, it seemed clear that they were getting amazing instruction in this area already. 

 SO - we got weird.  :)  

 Back in NYC folks like Walter Thompson, Butch Morris, John Zorn, and Evan Mazunik have created many different methods of ensemble improvisations led by a conductor. No written music is handed out, and nothing is prescribed beforehand, except a vocabulary of hand gestures and signals provided by the conductor. Things like WHO plays, WHAT they play, and WHEN they play are all part of the vocabulary, such that a conductor can improvise using the whole ensemble as his or her instrument. But the great part is that the "instrument" is made up of individuals who also have a huge amount of input and decisions to make that influence the whole composition. 

 I taught some basic signs for different instrument groupings, long tones, short tones, textural sounds and extended techniques, as well as teaching some basics of minimalism and rhythm improvisation. 

 My favorite part of improvising with young people is that there's no focus on improving their playing technique per se. When you improvise, you play the instrument you have, and you play it the way you play it. If you are a beginner and only know 5 notes on the trumpet, you improvise with those five notes!  If you are an amazing Banduria player that can play everything from Mozart to Filipino folkloric music, then you have that vocabulary to improvise with, and the beauty is that the 5 note trumpet player can play a duet with the blazing Banduria player, and it can be beautiful music!  But rarely can you find a pre-existing composition for 5-note trumpet and virtuoso Banduria. (someone please write that piece, though!) 

 The students were incredibly game, as were all of TEAM CLAVE (Adrienne and Lindsey) who added the dulcet tones of their voices to the mix. We made beautiful music, noisy music, an epic film score, some sweet beats, and lots and lots of ruckus.  After the inevitable and wonderful slew of selfies post-class, we somehow ended up gathering around the accordion and singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". If that ain't nice, I don't know what is. 

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Somewhere Over the Rainbow

That moment when students from #PhilippineHighSchoolfortheArts flock around your musician in a pied piper-like manner and spontaneously sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow." #thisiswhatitsallabout #TeamNathan #welovemusicians #DanceHeginbotham #DMUSA #culturaldiplomacy #ExchangeOurWorld