The Performance

Messiah – A Soulful Cellebration. Houston Met Too - Youth Company. Presented by Houston Metropolitan Dance Company.
December 9th 8:00pm.
Heinen Theater, on the campus of HCC Central
3517 Austin
Houston TX 77004
Tickets: $5.00 - $25.00. call 713/522-6375


Join us as our joy manifest as moving visions of faith and peace inspired by Quincy Jone's recordings of Handel’s Messiah. The work also includes the poetic works An Amazing Peace, and On the Pulse of Morning by Dr. Maya Angelou. This evening features choreography by Dustin Crumbaugh, Randall Flinn, Jonnesha Hawkins, Ashley Reichstein, jhon r. stronks, and Frank Vega.

For more information, call 713/522-6375
www.houstonmetdance.com or Houstonmetdancer@aol.com

For theater directions
http://ccollege.hccs.cc.tx.us/instru/fineart/Heinen.htm

The Company

The Houston Metropolitan Dance Center is proud of its Houston Met Too, Training Youth Company. This company is a product of the growth of the school and the need to produce our own dancers for the professional company The Houston Metropolitan Dance Company. The Houston Met Too training program for young dancers creates the setting needed to learn how a professional company works and what it takes to become a professional dancer. For the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company it provides a continuous flow of dancers who are well trained in our style. The program provides the faculty and dance education needed in the Southwest United States on a year-round basis to enhance the training of our young dancers. This company can be seen performing as the “Curtain Warmers” for many Society of Performing Arts Performances, at the Children’s Museum as well as their own concert at the Heinen Theater.

Executive Director
Michelle Smith

Met TOO Director
jhon r. stronks

Assistant Director
Ashley Reichstein

Met TOOs
Alice Bicani, Angela Bannout, Lila Blum, Risa D'Souza, Ali DiNunzio, Kayla Gantt, Jasmine Hearn, Kerry Jackson, Ashley Knight, Allie Larson, Mackenzie Menter, Sara Mohrman, Maya Petty, Dea Radovancevic, Hanna Read, Emma Wilson, Daisy Wolf

The Music

In 1992 music producer Quincy Jones in collaboration with composer and conductor Mervyn Warren drew a starry lineup of soloists and choir members from the gospel and secular music worlds to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Handel's "Messiah" by what else recording a new album. The resulting "Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration" won Jones his 27th Grammy Award and has since been played, sung, danced and, even occasionally, staged.

Jone's recording articulates cultural appropriation at its most innocent. Jones not only blends European and African-American musical forms, he traces very specifically the evolution of African American music from its African origins through its European influences and appropriations, expanding the 18th-century text from religious story telling into social commentary, and spiritual celebration. Classical music lovers greeted the unusual project mostly with silence. At least one music critic, Ottavio Roca, then at The Washington Times, found it sacrilegious, "a bizarre specialty act that will barely last out the season," while a few others praised its postmodern appropriation of Handel's music. Mozart had done something similar, though still within the classical tradition, when his tribute to the genius of Handel updated the 1742 "Messiah" score, adding woodwind parts and new melodies to reflect the musical taste of his times.

A Soulful Celebration is not only historical commentary or emotional expression it is intelligently revolutionary. Composer and conductor Mervyn Warren illustrates his education and understanding of Handel's form throughout the album. His thorough treatment of each selection actually maintain a fair amount of the original compositional structures altering not the forms so much but the expressions as they mix together to create a new expression of a timeless message from a contemporary action. In the case of "And The Glory of the Lord", Warren re-interprets the ornate baroque sensibility of the original through a reggae musical structure, maintaining the same bounce and rhythmic playfulness. The Glory is still there only this time it seems the glory of the lord is in the hips.

The Jones/ Warren composition matches the lyrics of Handel's original music, word for word, allowing the performers opportunity to pour their individual experience into the performance of the work. This is not unlike the original composition structure of Resistive then Aria, Handel used, where the resistive prior to the aria gives the soloist opportunity to improvise in a since coloring the melody with their passion and expression which makes live performance so special.

The Dancing... a note from Met Too Director jhon r. stronks

As a choreographer I find myself inspired by the energy and spirit around faith and ideas of peace. So when I was asked to re create A Soulful Celebration using the same recordings as last year, I sought to create a presentation that translated ideas of faith and peace through a concept of dancing that was informed by the historical contributions of black dance makers and their effects on the evolution of concert dance. Much in the same way the the Jones/ Warren recordings were conceived. The music being faith based, historically European and now reflecting African musical elements. What i then realized i was dealing with, was an expression of the evolution of African American musical tradition. This idea led me to closer investigation of the lives of dance makers who regularly used these themes in their work, some of them being Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, Jawole Willa Jo Zoller, Ron Brown, and Alvin Ailey. Probably the most famous faith based Dance Is REVELATIONS by Alvin Ailey.

When Alivin Ailey presented REVELATIONS on January 31st 1960, He released into the universe an expression of faith and community that would one day be performed in more places around the world than quite possibly anyother dance ever made. For those of us who are familular with this work It is easy to see why it has captivated audiences for over 40 years. Alvin placed on the stage a way of moving that was quite clearly the physical manifestation of his own personal experience as American, Black, and Male. A fusion of culture, intellect, spirit, and faith. A movement style that carried his residual past forward into the present moment with great urgency and a vast presence. Jennifer Denning wrote in "Alvin Ailey a Life in Dance" that "Revelations was and remains the work of a community, from the larger worlds of black Americans to the worlds of the individual dancers who helped create REVELATONS and passed it on to later generations. REVELATIONS was created for and by a band of friends, men, women, whose professional lives were, in effect, a work of hopeful activism."

Alvin Ailey was not the only choreographer doing this kind of work. Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham, and Donlad McKayle were either contemporaries or mentors to Alvin Ailey and were regularly presenting work that infused culture, intellect, spirit and faith. Likewise the choreographers for A Soulful Celebration have created work that translates their personal ideas of faith and peace into dances of celebration, calling upon the culture of today and honoring the work of the past. The Goal was not to recreate history, or re-make dances but use the history of this tradition to focus the energy of the dancing to reflect the choreographers relationship to the music, and to provide the dancers an oppertunity to have a more personal performance experience.

For me, A Soulful Celebration's purpose is made perfectly clear in the compositions first movement Overture: A Partial History of Black Music, and it was the composition I was most drawn to and the conceptual foundation for the rest of the show. When listening to this composition I hear the evolution of the Black American historical experience, Feel it in my body, and See it in my own history and understand American society at present. The Overture begins with the sound of the spirit of God on cricket legs, a tribal drum echoing in the night, and the shaking rattle of a high priest or priestess, gathering the community for celebration and communion with the earth, air, water and fire. Next, an explosion of energy rich with rhythm and texture, as the pounding drums and chirps are ultimately silenced. As this story of sound unfolds I feel the pull of sailing slave ships and the weight of the captives they carry to the new world, to the fields, this unwilling Diaspora crying the pain of separation from land, from families, from identity. From this melody of pain will raise a great and beautiful tradition, a tradition of resilience. As the score segues through post slavery/ pre civil rights America and on to the Ragtime era and the days of Scott Joplin, I hear the blending of horns and piano as heralds of change, small steps and a few back steps blending together and resting for a moment as we reach the big band era. Onward the composition charges staying true to the melody of the original Overture, each section continuously acquiring elements from the section before it re-inventing itself over and over tracing the evolution of blues, gospel, acid jazz, R & B, funk, hip hop and house music. It is a viscerally emotional experience for me every time. These are the ideas and experiences that have been a central part of my choreographic work and i feel they have found a nice home here.

For me this composition not only celebrates Black America's history it goes so far as to celebrate America's Black History as not only an anthology of struggle, acceptance, resilience and artistry, but a history filled with shared experiences and the true purpose of creativity... healing. This composition does yell at you, it screams at you in a not so quiet desperation until you get it and I rejoice in this way of living through action and praise for our collective existence on Earth. ASHE' ASHE' ASHE' I offer a West African word from the Yorba tradition meaning: the creator, the love, the spirit, the joy the god within, a word that carries for me the same understanding and energy as Hallelujah and Amen and rejoices in a life full of soul.

jhon r. stronks
Director Met Too

An Amazing Peace

Maya Angelou's 'Amazing Peace'

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem
By Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

On The Pulse of Morning

On the Pulse of morning

Dr.Maya Angelou
20 January 1993

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.