more from New York

Last week went to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. What an extraordinary event. Ive seen a lot of dance and have never seen anything like this. Classically trained Black dancers, doing modern, ballet, jazz, with distinctly black american movements. Wonderful. Beautiful. The highlight was a piece called Revelations, apparently Aileys masterpiece. Its set to spirituals and gospel music. Intense, very very sexy, deeply emotional, passionate, gorgeous. I got the CD so I can remember it over and over. Another piece was Shining Star which was danced with wild sexual energy to Earth Wind and Fire. Took the breath away really. The first part called The River was to music by Duke Ellington. Jazzy, moody, lovely. What a night. So original, so pure. So American, so Black.

A funny part of the evening was getting there with Betsy. She picked me up in her outrageously grotesque SUV. I get in the car and she pushes a button on the dashboard. A voice says: "Hello Mrs. Forsland, how can I help you?" Betsy says she needs directions. The Voice says: "where would you like to go?" Betsy says: The Proctors theatre in Schenectady. Suddenly a screen appears on the dashboard with a map and our car on the map. The voice says: "go to the end of the street you are on and turn right onto main street" and we see our car moving along the map as we drive. The voice continues to guide us along: "continue for 3 miles then turn left on ROute 20". Every few minutes the voice assures us we are on the right road and in a mile we will have to turn, it comes on again to tell us that our turn is coming up in a half mile, quarter mile, 50 yards, turn now. We had no idea where we were and the voice just guided us gently to right outside the theatre. Ah. America.

These last few days I have been staying at my brothers place as he is away at a conference and my sister in law was on a cruise. I was keeping my 16 year old niece Abby company. She is a synchronized swimmer. I went to practices (three hour practices four times a week) and a "meet" where local clubs compete. What a strange and funny and fun sport. Its like cheerleading competitions but in the water and you have to hold your breath. Great music, strong and graceful swimmers, sparkly costumes. At the meet there was this funny thing called a gel station. This is where the swimmers (all girls) go to get gelled up. It is a gelatine mixture, very thick, that keeps their hair in place in the water. The best part of all was that there are all body types included. There were some pretty big and yes pretty fat girls swimming and it was just fine. They were as strong and graceful and did as well as the thin ones. There was no difference in the routines or the medals or anything. That was very refreshing for a sport that is now in the Olympics. Some of these girls and maybe Abby, are Olympic material. What a new and weird thing to do, huh?

Next week going to see The Crucible, hear Yitzhak Perlman, and visit Paradox Lake.
Til then...