Blogs The Green Room Kenna Cottman

Cool, but Soul?

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To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, dancer and choreographer Kenna Cottman shares her perspective on Thursday’s performance of David [...]

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, dancer and choreographer Kenna Cottman shares her perspective on Thursday’s performance of David Zambrano’s Soul Project. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

It’s so different writing about something that’s just cool. Not super excited about it not super on fire about it — just cool. The Soul Project was cool but I will say that it made me feel my old soul. Especially when I arrived to see my parents and other elders in the dance community struggle with the format of standing and moving around and sitting on the floor. It pleased me greatly that David Zambrano reminded us to help each other view the solo dances. In the end, most of the moments I loved had to do with the soul music that ruled the evening’s playlist. So it was a cool night after all.

Dancer-wise, the two dudes, Evivaldo Ernesto and Horacio Macuacua, resonated with me — as I’m sure they resonated with everybody, but I wonder what the reasons really are? For me, these men interpreted the music, the spirit and the meaning and the groove, in a  way that made me feel like the weight of the soul ancestors was being touched or explored in a familial, respectful type way. For instance I loved the white fro and the trembling piece to the DreamGirls ballad. I actually kind of hate that song and I started to walk away but I’m glad I saw it. The physicalized vocal histrionics and the trembling movements were making me laugh so hard and then it was the moments of stillness that killed it*. Mr. Macuacua provided me with my “steps,” as I say, and I loved that the format allowed me to just go ahead and dance with him at certain points.

Let me go ahead and talk about the format. Because I always have to wonder, what do artists want and how much do they want when the invite us onto the stage. Because I feel like Minne should become known as the town to interact. Like “Don’t come to Minne if you don’t want people to dance with you when you invite them onstage.’” We are starting to loosen up and get that vibe, so I did appreciate all the people bopping their heads and dancing. If I had a boo there I would have been slow dancing for sure. I felt like the performers wanted it and Nina Fajdiga even jammed with me for a second during the group jam. They looked me in the eyes when they were walking around too. I felt like they wanted a lot of interaction and we could have given them more. I also liked the format but I thought it would have been nice to: 1.  have drinks onstage, 2. let the elders sit down**, 3. play some cuts after and let us dance more — or we could have just done that during the show, right?

Another point is that you invite cipher logic into the environment when you invite people on the stage. This means I get to talk, walk away, like it or not, and I get to jam the whole time if I want (as my friend Nancy was doing). Cipher logic is not the same as sitting in the theater seats  logic but I don’t know if the Soul Project peeps realized that some of us think like that.

Lastly I will say that it was just cool because of a lot of the dancing, although it was highly physical and mostly interesting, was lacking in the connection to the music that I was feeling.  I mean, there were only like two or three songs that I didn’t know played on the sound set that evening and I can feel some of those lyrics like I wrote ‘em meself!!! There were some moments when I was ready to walk away. When you play cuts like that you have to perform the hell out of them. I’m not saying you have to dance every beat but there is a certain energy that has to interpret those stories. Especially if we are going to do solos in close quarters. When I asked Mr. Zambrano afterward he said that he grew up listening to that music but the dancers had to be introduced to it. I know they were trying to make it but something was missing.  It’s sad to say that some of them lacked soul — I wonder if that is what it is.

*the good  kind of ‘killed it’

**they did provide gallery chairs

Peace!

Ms. Kenna-Camara Cottman

Stay Black: Kenna Cottman on “red, black & GREEN: a blues”

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To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, dancer and choreographer Kenna Cottman shares her perspective on Thursday’s performance of Marc [...]

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, dancer and choreographer Kenna Cottman shares her perspective on Thursday’s performance of Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s red, black & GREEN: a blues. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

…operate not as an urban planner or as an architect but operate based on my beliefs… belief is BLACK

I have to admit that I don’t think about “the question,” meaning the green question, at all really. I mean, I recycle, I use reusable bags at the store, I turn off the water when I brush my teeth, I even have a composter in my yard. But I never really think about the environment, sustainable living, fresh food and all that stuff in the context of Black people, and in the context of my art. So Marc Bamuthi Joseph really brought a new topic to my eye, to my mind, and that was tight!  Because he put it in the context of BLACK PEOPLE (well that’s how I interpreted it). Growing up in Minnesota, I realize that I’m actually pretty close to the earth, growing gardens and community gardens and all that shit. But red, black & GREEN: a blues made me remember that boyfriend I had in college from Mississippi. When he took me home for Christmas I found out that people still live in those shotgun houses, and there is a Black side of town and a white side of town, and I don’t think we ate any veg that wasn’t out of a can or cooked to grey death.

…His skin was the brown of soil you want to sow…

Traci Tolmaire. I loved her voice from the top of the stairs.  She was sitting at the top of the tallest part of the environment and she was speaking and singing and then she began moving and I really fell in love then! I loved her movement style – grounded, sexy, powerful, and totally in control. There was no abandon, but I didn’t miss it. Her eyes sparkled with intent. She inhabited these people: the bougie project manager, the busybody community woman, the old ex-wino turned installation artist. I guess I feel sad that I didn’t get to see as much of her, Traci – but she was there and present in her movement. The footworkin’ section, the Lindy hop section, the Dindada section, the anguish of a mother with a lost child – her movement was too tight! That moment when she went to comfort and was thrown off two times before her comfort was accepted – damn!

I WAS SO HAPPY that we got to walk on the stage and be inside the set, but I didn’t really see the beauty in the shotgun houses until I took my seat and viewed it from a distance. It wasn’t a set to me, it was an environment. I think that Theaster Gates intended for us to get all up in that environment, and we were too scared and Minnesota to really go there. That’s why I’m going again on Saturday night and best believe, it’s ON!  I saw a kid with a watermelon rind in his hand walking around. Yes. I didn’t believe that we were supposed to stand still and quiet and just watch – I KNEW we were supposed to walk around and see people, greet people, join in the songs and rhythms and just get all over it. I’m proud that I clapped, sang, danced, and stomped, hugged my homies and kept on changing spots. Even though my 13-year old is going to be mortified, when I go again I am going to:

• eat some watermelon and lemon
• sit in the chair and mess with the dominoes
• stand in weird places and look straight up or peek around corners
• try to engage Bamuthi in some capoeira or contact improv type thang
• ask if I can play the cajón and then play it if MC Soulati says yes
• this time I WILL BE THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE THE ENVIRONMENT (homegirl was trying to be the last one so I let her have it)

…the church that you smell in his voice is grief…

Theaster Gates‘ voice had so many tears inside it. He took me straight to church and to the jook joint after. He’s the type of performer who manages to make eye contact with me several times when he’s performing, and I feel like he’s really seeing me, talking to me, singing to me.  What a beautiful lament.

Beats and rhythms are the way I process life, making MC Soulati‘s contributions to the piece super important to me. He manifested this idea that I have that everything has an accompanying rhythm. Bamming bones, fingers on the light pole, the subversion of the cajón that looks like an innocent box – those things represent the rhythm that “they” tried to take away from us, proving it’s power! Stomps, claps and snaps — the church clap – praise break — djembe solo, tama waye! Soulati was the heartbeat of the piece, essential. Like how if you watch Boyz In The Hood with good sound, you can hear the bass of a booming system somewhere in every scene, sometimes buried way underneath but still essential, still kickin’. Stay.

…if you’re gonna be in this garden you can’t just be pretty; you have to put out…

Bamuthi moves like a man, not a dancer, and that’s a good thing to me. Gestures have so much meaning. He’s fusing all of our traditions – West African, Haitian, Black American. There’s a solidness to his footfalls, not stomping or heavy, but dependable. This is what we mean by grounded. There’s a fluidity of torso, not that he’s tworking or popping, but I feel the oceans and rivers in there. These things are also powerful and dependable. Everything is really clear and clean, and though I see the work required, he doesn’t look like its that taxing. Especially when he speaks and moves or busts a major phrase and then starts talking immediately after. Breath control, breath control, breath control styleeeee!  My favorite favorite, after the capoeira-like way that he cut through the crowd when we were all on stage, was when he was at the window and I could only see his upper body. Like looking at a pic that stops at the waist, you know the legs are still there even though you can’t see them.  He did one particular twist of his hips, just beneath the threshold of the windowsill. Aw man, that was so tight!

…she spits out a seed, looks at me, and asks “the question”

…Panther Blue Seeds, can’t just be pretty, strange fruit,Dindada, church that you smell, spits out a seed, Mekhi, Tupac, china straight, stay. Black panthers, still here, dangling earpiece, “cray,” shaking left hand extended, hella, belief is BLACK, my skin is brown, nobody knows, won’t let me breathe, yeaaaah, well…