A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a video* of a very unique collaboration. (Ok, so I didn’t stumble upon it – someone tweeted it, but isn’t that the same thing anymore??) It was a video of cellist Yo-Yo Ma accompanying jooker Lil Buck with Saint-Saen’s The Swan. It was quite an unusual pairing, one I definitely wouldn’t have expected, but one that was extremely successful!! Lil Buck’s interpretation of a piece of music that has been danced to since 1905 when Mikhail Fokine choreographed The Dying Swan for Anna Pavlova, was a beautiful expression of a piece of music that I used to only connect with the ballet interpretation of it. That has all changed – it has now become a symbol to me of innovation and collaboration.
Yo-Yo Ma is one of, if not the greatest cellist of our time, and it is no surprise that he is doing something different. Ma seems to always be doing something new, but this is the first time I know of that he has connected with something as different as Jookin’. Lil Buck is one of the most famous jookers. Jookin’, or Memphis Jookin’, or Gangsta Walking, is a style of hip-hop originated in Memphis that is now getting more and more attention, as it starts to affect other forms of dance. These two men don’t seem like they would go together, but they worked together to create something that became a sensation.
It’s not so much these two people or the product that they created that caused me to write about it. It’s how it made me reflect on the dances I do and the dance communities I’ve been involved in. I started to think about how each of the dances has evolved over the years that I have been involved as well as since their inception. There is always resistance to change, as the people who came before do not want to feel obsolete, and we do not want to lose the integrity of the dance, but there is usually an acceptance of the change. Ballet has accepted the modern dance community, and almost every ballet company now has “contemporary” programs on their season schedule. It was not always this way, but they have realized that as taste in our society changes, they need to change as well.
Every dance form needs to change and evolve. It can do so without giving up its origins and the basis of what makes it what it is. But if we fight the changes and reject them, and try to force it to stay the way it was when it was originated, then eventually it WILL become obsolete. We can always respect the past and show where we came from while evolving and changing. This is exactly what Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma showed us. There was respect for the past while showing the future. The past should not be forgotten, but it should be respected and used to enable the change and evolution of the dance.
Right on! Very well said, Stephanie!
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