It's Sunday, and the fourth time in as many years that I've come to this dance recital in Santa Monica. It's a family obligation--my husband's 12-year-old niece has been part of this dance school more than half her life --but it's also an obligation I don't mind. I love dance. I love the synergy of music and movement, even if it's not professionally done. I did the dance-school thing myself as a little girl, a version of it--weekly classes at a public park, nothing my parents had to pay for, and in Inglewood, not Santa Monica. Here, the costumes are elaborate, and the parents man booths outside the auditorium that do brisk business selling studio photos of the dancers, bottled water, post-performance bouquets. It's impressive, if overindulgent.
But I love dance, and these recitals always give me something to take away in terms of inspired moments. Something that makes the all the Westside trappings of the event irrelevant and the talent of a particular kid onstage the only thing that matters at all. I look forward to those moments. My husband's niece provided more than one such moment on Sunday, which made the trip worthwhile.
And yet the recital is...well, bizarre. Over the years the hip-hop component has grown to be roughly half of recital performances. Maybe it's a third. But what looms so large is how out of context it feels. White kids (yes, I'm the only black person in the room, including everybody on the dance staff), from teenagers on down to the six-year-olds, wearing big t-shirts and sneakers, gyrating and pelvic-thrusting to "urban" sounds that probably shock the grandmas who've come to see ballet excerpts and the like. Raw, sinewy beat and lyrics that include "rollin' with my homies," "do it on the flo' (that's 'floor' for the unititated)" and "push it real good" backing groups of children who thrust away, yet who smile as if they really are in a ballet excerpt or a crowd-pleasing Broadway number.
They kids are proficient, kind of. Hitting the marks and all that. But it's empty. It doesn't look like dance. There's no synergy of music and movement, no understanding on the part of the kids of what they're moving to, other than recognition of the fact that hip-hop has become a de rigueur form in private dance academies, and the province of all hip young Americans, whatever their color. It's required.
I get that. But there's so much that hip young Americans don't get. Black stuff going mainstream is old hat, but the tensions and unexamined questions that always raises feel new. Too new. What's supposed to be cultural exchange is more like cultural appropriation, with that American patina of liberation and equality that theoretically makes everything we do okay. It isn't. There are many, many steps we have yet to learn.
The image associate with this post was taken by Flickr user Joits. It was used under Creative Commons license.
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You more often than not remind me why I find reading your essays like cozying up with a good book or some comfort food.
Nothing so profound as to provoke, yet profound enough for us to re-examine our experiences and see how others might view them.
I have observed how the hip hop craze, after an initial period of awkwardness, started slowly seeping in to main stream dance. Yet, doesn't that really say so much about how the culture evolves rather than how racial lines blur?
I recall Little Richard, the Temptations, the Isley brothers and those of the period and how we, the white middle class were fascinated at this "new" music and how it was performed (remember the funny steps they used to do and those glittery costumes?). Yet the essence of that wonderful music so pervaded our musical zeitgeist that those of the present generation would argue with you that any of it is anything but "uniquely American"...e.g. Elvis Presley.
Nevertheless, it is always good to be reminded, especially from someone so comfortable with her words, how we can see things through the eyes of others of different backgrounds.
Erin, you raise many good points. Yes, the United States has had a long history of assimilating innovative black culture into mainstream society while leaving the actual creators of the art behind. We know all too well that what is happening today with hip-hop also happened fifty years ago with jazz, eighty years ago during the Harlem Renaissance, and one hundred year ago with the birth of ragtime.
You say, however, that "the tensions and unexamined questions" engendered by this appropriation still feel new today. Is your point that that tensions over this issue continues to persist regardless of the number of times it has already occurred? Or are you implying that this newest phase--America's current obsession of hip-hop--is something entirely new?
Mel & Maxwell: thanks for those thoughtful questions and comments. Yes, by "new" I did actually mean that the issues around black appropriation have never really been resolved, or delved into. We tend to point to hip-hop, etc. as great examples of our "melting pot" and leave it at that because the story of the bigger dynamics are just too uncomfortable (and uresolvable). Though there's always that group that frowns on the youth cozying up to jazz, hip-hop and other black forms as downright deviltry. Of course, blacks often felt that way too-- churchgoers thought r & b blasphemed gospel, and before that, the blues blasphemed spirituals and other black church music. So "black music" has long been the common goal and the common enemy of more groups than one.
Erin, please pardon a little brashness here, but when you watch rich white kids emulating poor black urban culture for parental praise (no profit here), does it feel like a minstrel show to you (clothing style and dialects instead of blackface makeup)? Among a multitude of other things, perhaps the reason there is "no understanding on the part of the kids of what they're moving to" relates to the fact that store employees don't automatically follow them around inside a supermarket even when framed in their oversized clothing.
You did it again, Erin. Mel L. hit it on the head when he said, "Nothing so profound as to provoke, yet profound enough for us to re-examine our experiences and see how others might view them." I really appreciate this about you.
Erin, you bring up an interesting point about the connection of black music and religion, or more precisely gospel. Having traveled the world, and of course, coming from such a melting pot of religion that the US is, we listen to music that emanates from religion. It seems to me that much of the music from the black religious experience has always seemed, at least to me, to be beyond rhythmic, upbeat and for want of a better word, "inclusive" in that, at least the faster rhythmic hymns were less belonging to a relgious moment. On the other hand the music heard in white Christian churches, Jewish houses of worship, Muslim temples, Buddhist and other Asian temples all seemed to be variations on a chant. It always sounded more somber, or for more joyous hymns, too serious.
Music of the black experience that seemed to evolve, at least from this outsider, seemed not only joyous, but upbeat and inclusive. One rarely sees a group of people listening to such music without getting into the rhythm......whether the crowd is all black or a mixture.
With the tragic death of Michael Jackson yesterday, I was reminded during the endless analysis of his legacy what all this was really about. The evolution was from black music, to black music by and for black musicians that white people liked, to music by black musicians that all people liked...to just music that happened to be played by black artists.
Although hip hop doesn't quite fit this pattern, I can tell you that because of this natural progression, that as I travel the world, everywhere, in all continents, although the various cultures have their respective styles and artists that are locally very popular, the music that is sought after internationally are the styles that have come out of the African American experience...hands down. Neither Elvis Presley nor the Beatles ever quite became that universal. Whatever it is about the uniqueness of that music be its origins in struggle and/or hope, one relates to it worldwide. We must not overanalyze but it is sought after and unique.