DCDanceBlog

my trip to mn this past weekend turned out great. i did indeed visit the museum below, in fact i walked right through the scene in the picture, though it was under 5 inches of snow at the time. it’s a beautiful building, with galleries inside that wind upward gradually rather than having clearly delineated floors.

i also took a modern class in mn that was offered by zenon dance company. the teacher was a sub, which was nice since apparently the normal teacher has a warmup he uses every time and whips through quickly. this way i wasn’t the only new person.

it was a great class. the teacher, eddie arroyo (?) was a beautiful mover and extremely physical–one of those guys who probably came to dance from a lifetime of serious competitive sports. he was in tip top shape and obviously made an effort to stay that way, and his body seemed perfectly integrated. his style was extremely physical but also very idiosyncratic, emphazing circularity and a swirling ribcage above strong but light legs. a challenge to get, but fun.

at one point eddie said that he’d created the phrase we were working on “while listening to gnarls barkley, so it might not work right now,” and everyone laughed. i’d never heard of gnarls barkley, so i assumed it was a local mn band. much to my surprise, i read about him sunday in the ny times and apparently he’s really popular! good grief, am i that out of it??? the students were considerably younger than me, so maybe i’m just beyond that sphere of influence…

in general, the other dancers were nice but not particularly impressive. it was a surprise since i’d been thinking of minneapolis as an arts mecca.  but maybe it is. i was there for a wedding so i didn’t get a chance to fully investigate, but a new friend who i met there sent me a link to this article about a new downtown venue for dance. one of the key quotes is “Minneapolis is a great city for dance, especially for people who are intellectual, brave, and people who are OK with not being popular all the time.” nice.