Many people say in life situations that “eventually you will grow to appreciate this trust me”. Now I know that many people are like of course I have heard this before but its never true and it never will be. I was definitely one of those people because if I did not like something from the start I would not give it another chance. I would always be negative about the situation and never think about its greater meaning. I truly would think nothing when someone says to me that you will eventually grow to appreciate something in the end. I think of this and I am shocked to say that it is possible that those people were right. You may ask, what situation could be so significant to change my opinion? My answer to you is the meeting I had with Ralph Lemon and his cast in Rathaus Hall.
“How Can You Stay In the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere” at BAM was a very unique performance to the say the least. A piece filled with confusion, drawn out crying, dancing and flailing made my first dance performance a little tortured. I did not have a grasp on what Ralph Lemon was trying to convey and so I was really frustrated overall with the piece. You would think that I would never want to see or have anything to do with this performance ever again. However, after receiving the insight from Dr. Profeta about the piece and the announcement that Ralph Lemon was coming, I knew I wanted to hear what he had to say.
A great majority of my class was present in the meeting with Ralph Lemon. The atmosphere for me was a little uncomfortable and different than what I was used to. When Ralph Lemon and the cast arrived, the atmosphere began to change for me. He was very casual and a very down to earth person. He presented such great insight to his piece and has such a passion for his work, that it was truly inspiring. Ralph Lemon’s passion for dance to him is not only a career, but I felt that he was on an adventure. He was on a quest, in search of something that he was destined to find throughout his lifetime. He told us that this performance was a contribution to what he was in search for. He has worked with dances of different forms, but he was not truly satisfied with the product. Ralph Lemon wanted something which the other dancers described as a fiery liveliness.
Ralph Lemon’s talk made me realize how many paradoxes he had within his dance. He wanted a dance with no form but at the same time carried a form of its own. A dance with no structure, but at the same time had a structure of its own. To him, this dance was created and achieved by having his dancers emulate the feeling of ecstasy. This is how Ralph Lemon struck me in the meeting. When he talked about the ecstasy he was trying to achieve, he seemed so determined to carry out an adventure of finding ecstasy. He did not only want a twenty minute period, he wanted his dancers to have this feeling forever. To Ralph Lemon dancing transcends any career, it serves as his identity. The dance he is in search for influences how he thinks and how he perceives things. He is not only in want of ecstasy. He desires to have a dance fused with fiery passion and ecstasy, that culminates into the virtue of grace. The way Ralph Lemon spoke that day displayed the grace that he was in search for. He did not want a grace that was on the religious side, he wanted a grace that displayed and reflected elegance like no other.
Can he achieve this goal? It is for the audience to wait and see his future performances. We have seen his twenty minute attempt at it but he is far from done. He wants it to be long lasting and I wonder if it will be physically possible? One person asked if he needed the audience in his performance. He truly does, he needs the audience to display his adventure. Of course they will never influence how Ralph Lemon does his work, but it allows him to show his work. He is allowed to say “Hey this is my work, my attempt on finding ecstasy and grace” and as an artist he is displaying his work for all to see. I can only wonder where he will go from here.
