DCDanceBlog

the scene: eastern market area, capitol hill, morning

we’re up at 9:30 on this chilly morning–9:30! that’s early. wearing hoodies and black pants and trying to figure out our next steps. the 3 of us want to do a small improv performance outdoors somewhere around here. it’s our new thing: site specific improv, impromptu, semi-regularly. we’ve got a vague structure, and now all we need is a setting.

one of us spies a park with bushes and benches and we decide to use it as our site. after a few more adjustments and discussions, we start. apart, we’re moving slowly, internally, morning mood. gradually we come together into a line that we move in and out of, duets and solos and trios. big and small movements. finally we end on a bench, we three, in a stillness that we hold, hold, hold, then shift into a last position. done. and in silence we troop off to the street, to coffee and pastry and laughter.

that felt good.

the scene: marvin bar and restaurant, 14th and u, late evening

we’re here getting lively, chatting up the folks, drinking and smiling. it’s a pickup place full of new faces, bodies smooshed up against each other in this hip new spot. somehow we fall in with a serbian crowd, a bunch of fun-havers, laughers, smokers. and then this serbian guy comes up to one of us, about to flirt, then squints and says, “hey, i saw you this morning! you were dancing–near the market, right?” and we smile in recognition. “yes, it was you!” he says. “i’ve never seen that before. yes, the guys playing jazz, musicians, but not dancing!”

he saw us! spied us through the bushes. he caught our impromptu performance! we are amazingly tickled, laughing, so psyched and flattered that we were watched. it’s so hard to tell who notices these kinds of performances, you know?

and we decide that’s our whole point. to keep dancing, performing in out-of-the-way places, doing it regularly. so that eventually people will start to wonder what they’ve seen, may even mention it to each other: “i saw the coolest thing today–these chicks dancing on the street!” “oh yeah? i saw something like that last week, but across town…” something like that. something that breaks up the monotony of regular dc life, that adds a bit of low-key mysterious zing, a bit of hand-crafted art to someone’s day.