Last night Ohad Naharin joined the ranks of great choreographers like Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais, Alwin Ailey, Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris, Trisha Brown, and Pina Bausch in recieving the Samuel H. Scripps ($50,000) Award for Lifetime Achievement.
He accepted the Scripps award before Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performed Decadance (2007) which includes sections from ten of his earlier pieces. But before leaving us to a buffet-style helping of his choreography, he directed the following words to all the dancers in the audience:
(from the words I scrawled on my program)
Get rid of all mirrors - I lived -- years without mirrors.
Copy...yet only copy the good things.
Feel free to change your mind.
Spend time outdoors, look at the sky.
Be silly - not stupid. Be able to laugh at yourself.
Have no secrets. Live and dance like you have nothing to hide...
...and if you win an award, make a short speech.
Decadance, July 25, 2009, Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham, NC.
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Rambling Dancing, Dancing Ramblings.
