Moving Together

[bluesy trumpet plays] Funding for this program was made possible by Michael Esposito, the Moody Innovation Grant, and by the Dina Sherzer Award for documentary filmmaking from the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin.

[trumpet plays] [birds chirping] Oh, wait, wait.

Okay.

So, no.

I think we should do it.

- Maybe.

Cause that's... - Ehh.

That's how we grew up though.

- Right.

True, true.

You know, why we ashamed of that?

- That's, that's a good point.

Yeah.

We'll just beep out the little words.

- Yeah.

Okay, how it start off?

- [singing] Wake up early in the morning.

[in unison] I jump shive.

I'm kickin' it, kickin' it, kickin' it.

And I don't know why.

And I'm smooth, and all these know, I go by the name of little Kangol.

I'm up, [taps rhythmically] in the morning.

- Ah!

Uh!

You remember that?

- Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

Zadie prep dances.

St.

Mary's dances.

You see that, right?

- Right.

You know people know beaucoup is.

That means what?

Little?

- A lot.

A lot.

Oh, a lot.

There ya go and shive is that New Orleans.

- That's right.

That's when you clean.

Right?

- I don't even know if they still say that.

No, they don't say that.

Them children don't know nothing about beaucoup shive.

- I'm beaucoup shive right now.

Look at, look at.

Ooh, you know what?

- But I always come out like that, right?

You be clean though.

You be beaucoup.

It is a lot.

- Right.

The culture is real.

You know?

- Right.

Its real, real.

You know?

And we both grew up in it - Right.

In a certain kind of way.

Right?

- We did.

You know, your, your father and father's father and father's, father's father.

- Six generations.

I'm number six.

Six generations, y'all.

- That's crazy.

- But you know, I tell people I'm a sixth generation, but like, I'm not unique.

There's, you know, all kinds of families in New Orleans that whether it be food, dance, music, whatever, - Everything.

it's like what your daddy did, You, you kind of grew up doing.

And you don't have to do it professionally, but you know it's in your blood.

- But it's in your blood.

It's in your blood.

- Okay, so that's important though.

So when we say something is in your blood, that means that it lives in you a certain way.

- Exactly.

So, as a New Orleans musician, - Right.

When you play, you not playing what you really was taught.

- No.

You're playing what you feel.

- Yeah.

And then as a dancer, You know, growing up in New Orleans, the the root under my feet, the polyrhythms under my feet is the thing that made me move.

- Yep.

Yep.

That make us different.

- Yep.

That's the uniqueness right there.

That's our people.

That's our culture.

Yeah.

- Yes, ma'am.

[dreamy ambient music starts] I was raised a preacher's daughter.

My father was a minister in the AME church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

So I was a PK.

So my earliest connections to movement was in church.

Not defining it as movement.

'Cause it wasn't movement, 'cause it was spirit.

But the idea that my body can be a part of this idea was always fulfilling.

The choir starts singing.

You know, you start moving, you are like, what is this?

Right?

And it becomes something that's very internal.

I always move from a sacred space, not because I wanted to move, but because there was something else that was forcing me to do it.

Being young, you think you doing it and you not knowing its spirit.

But as you get older, you realize that these, these improvisational impulses happen because of something bigger than you.

And when something is in you, it don't matter where is, it doesn't matter where you are.

Sometimes I'm like, okay, you know, I don't get home often, you know?

And I know my people be like, you know, But she don't come home.

Home is always in you.

Girl, New Orleans gave me Funk.

It gave me sass.

It gave me ownership.

It gave me gratitude.

Gave me a foundation.

Yeah.

Seis, siete, ocho, nueve.

Ay!

[dancers rhythmically stomping] Bah, bah.

Yeah?

Bah, bah, ah, ah Yeah?

So, we did this one, I feel like it was a while ago now.

It was in the fall.

It's a little bit asymmetrical.

So, it's really just that.

Leave one down.

Planta.

So when you come back, there's no heel.

Go straight to planta.

Planta, planta, planta, planta.

Relax, small movements.

Okay.

My responsibility as a flamenco dancer is, is to be as familiar with the music as the musicians.

I mean you can't just go out and kind of be on the beat.

You have to really be participating and you really have to be in control of what you're doing because you're playing percussion the whole time that you're dancing.

bah, bah, bah And then we go into that series.

We're both very passionate and very stubborn.

She has her own, her own world.

And I have my own ideas too.

And just because we love each other and we work together doesn't mean that we compromise on how we feel art should be done.

Okay, let's do it again.

- You were not thinking about that.

You came in later.

- The first time I came in later?

- You waited a little longer this time.

Because you left us a respeto the first time.

And this time, no.

- You wanna try it again?

Let's do it again.

[ambient music plays] Let's just do a, a simple pattern together.

No big deal.

So I'm just gonna bring my palms forward.

Open them, just take my shoulders, floating my shoulders up, easy and back.

Just do that two more times.

Yeah.

Can I feel more mobility with less effort too.

Just once more easy, more mobility with less effort.

Easy.

Easy, easy, easy.

And I'm gonna reverse that.

Just floating, arms up and then floating arms.

- If you're teaching dance and you're working with a musician that isn't sensitive, it can ruin your class.

Like it absolutely can ruin your class.

And the opposite is true.

If you're working with someone who's really sensitive and really listening and really offering their own, their own version of the, of the exploration.

It's like, it's profound.

What what can happen.

So I've been really grateful to Michael for, for bringing his, the depth of his work into the space and for kind of growing, growing with the class, changing with the class, pushing the class.

I'm gonna soften my chin to my chest.

I'm just gonna circle my head to the right and then to the left.

Easy.

And then I'm gonna reverse, circling to the left.

Easy.

Imagining, yeah, the cradling of as my head dips back inside.

Just gonna take my ribs.

Yeah.

Taking my ribs and circling them to the right.

Easy.

Floating.

Yeah, I'm just floating my ribs in space soft and then circling ribs to the other side.

Easy.

- His relationship to music is constantly evolving.

So every time we meet again, there's new, new ideas, new, new, new ways of making sound.

So that, that dialogue helps me.

You know, it helps me imagine new possibilities.

It helps me feel new possibilities in my body.

Softening.

I'm just gonna flex my right heel for a moment and press through my right metatarsals and reaching with my pinky toe.

Pressing my pinky toe into the ground, keeping my other five four toes lifted.

And then sequencing, 5, 4, 3, 2 Softening.

Yeah, softening.

- I loved playing like one conga for a dance class.

And I love playing ballet, but I also wanted to play 40 tracks of music in a very film score, Like a very big broad way.

- Moving space.

One.

Yeah, two.

Jesse let me play around with how to be very good with the volume knob to play quiet.

And then when he's not guiding and steps out that I can literally like, take all of this space.

[ambient music swells] We never worry about like the music sitting on top of the movement.

It's just like, let's blow as much, you know, let's blow this all up.

Or let's come to a very quiet, focused moment.

[ambient music fades] [sounds of lapping water and birds] Flamenco makes me cry.

The essence of it is that pain.

[bluesy trumpet plays] And sometimes a whole room will share in on the same feeling, but sometimes it's just within you.

[music finishes] [jazzy trumpet plays] Let's go, let's go.

Hey!

Hey!

- Uh!

Hey!

- Uhuh Come on!

Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

[trumpet finishes] [birds chirping] What's exciting to me about dancing and about art making is just the capacity to feel more and to do that without being embarrassed about feeling like, I want to think, I want to analyze, I want to critique.

I want to engage research in a very serious and academic way.

But I also want to feel deeply and unapologetically inside my work.

Beautiful sound, beautiful music, powerful music It reshapes me and it reshapes me in movement, in, in kind of forward movement.

So it's powerful and, and powerfully important to find those sounds.

Those people who can make the sounds that, that you want, that you want to live with, that you want to change, you know, that, you know, 'cause it is changing your life in a way.

Like, I know that sounds kind of epic, but it is that that meeting is really potent, has a lot of potential.

Michael's music helps me ride that, you know, ride that possibility.

And I think it has to do with like, the, the sincerity of it.

Michael's music isn't trying to be cool in my perception of it.

It's trying to be responsive.

It's trying to like mold possibility.

So I want to, I want to be with I want to ride that current, I want to ride that energy.

I want to put my body in the flow.

in the energetic like wave of that, of that possibility of that question, of that feeling like that, that desire to feel more that I think his music has.

[ambient music swells] So this intentional touch that seeks to, right.

Seeks to help me identify what's interior to my body.

So for me today, that touch is pretty gentle.

And then I'm, I'm tracking energy, seeing energy move through the center of - Jesse doesn't need me to play music to be able to do what he does - To my belly.

So it's a diagonal for me.

- So it leaves the freedom of the accompanist to create something that walks beside it instead of underneath it or around it, or on top of it.

Or I don't have to carry, I don't have, there's, it's really just this idea of walking next to each other.

- Center of joints.

Yeah.

Again, touching through flesh Like how my touch penetrates.

Yeah.

Looks beautiful.

What I'd like to do is take some time to travel across the space in groups of like three or four.

And now there's this moment to kind of be each other's teachers.

So we're like, oh, wow, I would never do that, but maybe now I will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's come.

[ambient electronic music swells] We would get to the end of class and the music would be so powerful and the energy would be so like, vital.

And then people would just, we would just dance.

Like, there would just be this sort of like, release into a kind of ecstatic mode of like, it was, it was like, it was joyous.

It made me feel that what we were doing wasn't just about what was happening in the studio but we were looking for a kind of like, pleasure and capacity and like an understanding of what's possible through being artists.

Lush three dimensional heels.Yeah.

Tremendous, tremendous volume and energy.

Like it brought us to this place of like pleasure and joy and possibility and like a moment of, of at least, at least it felt like collective liberation.

like a glimpse of that.

I'm always looking for that now.

That's kind, that's kind of like, that's sort of why I'm, I'm doing this, you know, to, to To see like if the research and the work makes possible, like these moments of transcendence.

10, 9, 8, 7 Yeah, feeling, feeling, feeling, 4, 3, nice.

2, yeah.

Good.

And 1, beautiful.

[birds and insects chirping] [Flamenco guitar starts] [singing in Spanish] I don't just want to play perfect music.

I'm a firm believer that there is no mistakes.

That there is, it's just different outcomes.

You know, you put things together in a different way.

It's not what you expected, but it's not necessarily bad.

You know?

Does music have any meaning at all?

Does this that we're doing, does it have a meaning?

Or is it just an exercise in futility, you know?

I like to think not just that this is something fun, you know, I like to, I like to think about bigger things.

[song finishes] [sounds of Flamenco steps and guitar] Then I go... From "ley."

- Did we do something different - No?

- Because I come in almost on top of your last line.

I may have done something longer - Okay 'cause I think that's the way we did the other day.

[singing in Spanish] Let's try not to rush.

- This is super slow.

Wait.

- I don't know what happened.

You're doing the first letra or the second letra?

- First letra.

No, let's do the second letra.

because we're practicing the transition into the, into the slow.

Yeah.

- Okay.

I'm sorry.

- You want do the whole thing?

- Second letra before that false - That's okay.

That's your letra.

No, but let's practice because that's the hardest part.

- Let's practice the whole thing but then let's do it... because I don't have the order.

That segment is the most difficultone out of everything.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Sorry.

So that is gonna go from your Can we do again that little transition?

Yes.

How does the remate go?

The little llamadita?

- Give me the beat to "Siento... - 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

And 1 and 2, 3, 4.

That's it.

Then your aire.

- Oh, I forgot.

And... - Facing.

- Ol.

Okay, let's do it again.

- Let's do it again.

Yes.

'Cause that really is the hardest part.

From the second letra again.

Actually, let's do Jose's falsetta.

Let's do the whole thing now, be - Hang on, no.

We have to take it into sections.

Trust me.

Because that is the hardest part The rest, we've done it many times.

But, you know what I'm saying?

That's why I want to do the letr and then the samba de una nota, to see what the speed is in that - Okay, let's do the first letra do it from the top.

- That's what I'm saying guys.

You keep contradicting me.

- Wife is always right.

You start with whatever you want I start, right?

No, I start.

Ah, it's the escobilla.

Okay.

I wanna practice that other thing again.

But At that speed.

[band playing When The Saints G Marching In fades in] I pick up jazz musicians from everywhere I go.

I don't know them, right?

So I meet with them literally a hour or two hours before the class.

And I conduct like a jam session with the songs I wanna do.

And that's the songs that are played in class.

Now, is it gonna sound like how we rehearse it?

Probably not.

But I don't want it to because I want the musicians to be able to embody this, this feeling as well with us.

'cause that's what community should be, right?

We should all be embodying together.

There's not a separation of, of embodiment.

Not in a true community.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Yeah, play!

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

Yeah.

Come on, trombone, come on, come on, come on.

- Yeah, woo!

Let's go, let's go.

Hey!

There it go!

Let's go, let's go!

Come on.

Whatcha said Yeah!

Oh!

Oh!

[trumpet fanfare] - My class has a flow as it relates to the music and the dance.

Because if it has a, if it has a comma in the sentence, it's gonna put my students on pause.

I need their spirits to keep moving - As we preparing for this class Like, I want us to feel this with each other, right?

So like, this whole thing for me is not about Second Line as a commercial idea.

What people see on YouTube, this this thing can heal a nation.

So we think about all those things.

The Congolese, the Haitian influence, the West African influence.

That's, that's that thing that you see in them streets.

You can't teach nobody how to do that.

Ooh, that was smooth.

Hey, y'all!

- Hey!

Okay, so first of all, lemme tell you something, for all my musician friends and colleagues that I went to school with, you know, I'm not trying to say that I am this guru of music, right?

But everybody hear music, you could hear what you hear.

Yeah, what I'm saying.

And being - Yeah.

Yeah.

You can feel it.

You feel it.

and being a dancer, we respond, - Yeah.

To what you play.

So, everything that I'm saying I'm saying it because I've lived it.

That's, that's what we're gonna bring to the forefront.

That thing.

Meeting people.

Like, it's almost like this leveling of ideas.

Like anybody can come to the class.

You don't have to be a professional dancer.

- Good turn.

- Cool.

So, let me hear something.

What we gonna do?

What we playing?

- Alright, so we have like - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Second Line songs.

And then we have the covers You know, I Wish, Off the Wall, Okay.

- You want to hear, Let's just do snippets of all of the Second Line songs.

Just little snippets not whole songs.

So I can just hear, - Okay.

What I'm hearing.

- One, two, - One, two, one, two, three, four.

[band starts playing "Big Girl"] - One, two, three.

Yeah.

- [band singing] Oh, back it up and dump it, back it up and dump it.

- Oh, back it up and dump it, back it up and dump it.

- Oh, back it up and dump it, back it up and dump it.

Oh, back it up and dump it.

- Musicians and dancers.

We have a responsibility to each other.

I tell my students all the time, I say the musicians are not here for your entertainment.

They are here for your experience.

They are here to experience.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

Won't you back that up?

Ayy.

Ayy.

- [band singing] Big girl!

Back dump it, back it up and dump it.

- Back it up and dump it.

- Big girl!

Back it up and dump it, back it up and dump it.

- I said, big girl!

- Big girl!

- Won't you back it up?

- Back it up!

- Like a Uhaul truck.

- I said, big girl!

- Big girl!

- Won't you back it up?

- Back it up!

- Like a Uhaul truck.

- I said, big girl!

- Big girl!

- Won't you back it up?

- Back it up!

- Like a Uhaul truck.

- I said, big girl!

- Big girl!

- Won't you back it up?

- Back it up!

- Like a Uhaul truck.

[music stops] So if you say that, instead of saying it versus singing it, what would that sound like?

- If we say it versus singing it [rhythmically speaking] I said, big girl, back it up.

- Ahuh, ahuh.

[singing] Big girl.

You see the difference?

I just, - Ahuh.

- You want us to do it the other way?

Yeah, just talk, just tell me, big girl.

Just tell me back it up.

- Alright, got you.

- We won't sing it you, we'll give it you.

Okay bro.

Just that part.

And then we go to the next one.

- Alright.

Here we go 1, 2, 1, 2, 3.

[chanting] Big girl, - Big girl.

Back it up.

- Back it up.

Like a Uhaul truck.

[chanting] Big girl, - Big girl.

Back it up.

- Back it up.

Like a Uhaul truck.

- See that make me want to do something!

[chanting] Big girl, - Big girl.

Back it up.

- Back it up.

That's how the woman respond - Like a Uhaul truck when they get in the street.

I said big girl.

- Big girl.

Back it up.

- Back it up.

Ahh!

yes!

-Like a Uhaul truck.

[music stops] That's it.

I mean, did you feel the difference?

- Yeah.

And look, he's saying it to me, right?

This is the thing.

So when Congo Square, when we had the couples dancing, right?

He would be doing that and I would respond, but he was doing and singing and looking.

It's that thing right there.

That's that, that's, that's, I'm sorry.

- Yeah.

So on any of these songs, if you want us to open it up, like they, they all can be longer.

We have solos, but you know, if not, we can just cut 'em.

- On this one, there normally is two.

Yeah.

Okay.

So sometimes what I'll do - We'll watch you.

Right.

because sometimes I'll need the trumpet.

I'll need that.

So we'll just play.

So if you can just sing the vibe [rhythmically sings] Whatever.

- Okay, yeah, so We can also change the, the beat to anything, you know, Second Line-ish, like on any of these tunes, it really wouldn't be that much of an issue too.

- Okay, because I think you remember last time when I came Yes, you want it to flow and we'll change it.

Like we got Sexual Healing.

We can do a whole medley of, we got you I know what you, I know what you We are gonna have a good time.

[atmospheric music plays] [trumpet plays slowly] [trumpet increases tempo] [trumpet finishes] [Flamenco guitar starts] [Flamenco song in Spanish starts] [Flamenco quickens] [Flamenco singer starts] - Ol.

[Flamenco finishes] - On this day, August 28th, 2005 changed a lot of our lives forever in New Orleans.

Her name was Katrina.

And Katrina put us in positions of unknown.

We were scared, we were nervous.

We just made a move because that's what Ray Nagin told us to do.

Never knowing that it would change our lives forever.

There were lives lost.

2005, there were souls lost.

2005, August 28th [trumpet player starts "St.

James Infirmary"] Preservation is important because people come from all over the world to New Orleans now because people have figured out and have felt, not even figured out.

They felt the power of New Orleans and the energy of New Orleans.

So everybody wants to write and wants to do all these things but if we ourselves don't preserve it, [drums join trumpet] what is its worth?

If we don't tell our stories of Katrina, what is this?

What is it gonna matter 10 years from now?

Is it really gonna be our stories?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[band hums along to trumpet] So during the jazz funeral, when the funeral is over, we had our service on Friday night, that's the wake.

People don't have wakes no more because we live in America.

Everything is on fast forward timing.

But in New Orleans, we have wakes on Fridays and then on Saturdays we have the funeral.

There is someone who meets the deceased, as the deceased is being brought down the aisle.

And that is the Grand Marshal.

The Grand Marshal stands as a gatekeeper for the transition.

And so I stand Michelle Gibson as a gatekeeper, the middleman.

So behind the Grand Marshal, there is the brass band.

Behind the brass band in a jazz funeral is the First Line.

The First Line is what we leave for the family of the bereaved.

If the family can walk with us to the cemetary, we leave space for them.

Behind the First Line is the Second Line.

The Second Line is all of y'all, the community.

In New Orleans, [the tuba joins] we believe in supporting transition We believe in supporting transition.

So everybody in here becomes a part of the Second Line.

And we take Adella, mama Adella, the storyteller who just passed.

We take her on.

Mama Badaringwa, we take you on.

We transition you on, And we celebrate.

- 5, 6, 7, heels.

[brass band starts playing "Big Girl"] - Ayy!

Light on the feet, not that wide Not that wide.

- Woo!

Stay under!

Yeah!

Right!

- [band singing] Oh!

Back it up and dump it.

- Back it up and dump it.

- [band singing] Oh!

Back it up and dump it.

- Back it up and dump it.

One, two.

- [band singing] Oh!

Back it up and dump it.

- Back it up and dump it.

One, two.

Again.

One, two.

Singles.

Pelvis!

Pelvis!

Again!

Pelvis!

Yeah!

And!

And!

Pick it up!

Here we go!

Here we go!

- [band singing] Big girl!

- [band singing] Back it up and dump it.

Back it up and dump it.

Ooh!

- Back it up and dump it.

Back it up and dump it.

- I said big girl!

Back it up and dump it.

They want us to back it up!

Hold up!

Ah!

- Big girl!

Back it up and dump Back it up and dump it.

- [band singing] I said big girl Back it up.

Back it up!

- [band singing] Like a Uhaul truck.

Yeah!

- [band singing] Get back!

[whistle blows] Left!

Hey!

Use your whole body!

Use your whole body!

Hey!

Shoulders!

Oh!

Pelvis!

Honey, when the music is good, there's no way you can sit still White, Black, Asian, Vietnamese, Italian.

You feel something.

It allows every single person, every breathing body, every polyrhythmic, heartbeat in that space to roll on one rhythm.

That's power.

[whistle blows] [brass band plays "Casanova"] Go back!

Everybody gotta open their legs.

You gotta open them.

Let's go!

First side!

[whistle blows] [band starts singing] - [band singing] Say roll with m me.

Say rock with me, rock with me.

[music continues] [bluesy trumpet plays] Funding for this program was made possible by Michael Esposito, the Moody Innovation Grant, and by the Dina Sherzer Award for documentary filmmaking from the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin.