Live To Dance...........Please

I love ON DEMAND Cable.  It really allows me to watch all the programming that I would not get a chance to see if it were not On Demand.  Having said that, I watched Paula Abdul's "Live To Dance" show.  And let me say that I was delightfully shocked at its content.  "Live To Dance" is a dance performance show that is open to any age and any style of dance.  And to be honest I think this may be the genius of the show. I was inspired seeing 85 and 95 year old women on stage still going after the dream.  It was extremely inspirational.  There were children who are better dancers at 8-years-old than I will EVER be.  And uhhhhhhhh I used to LAY IT DOWN.  Or at least I felt that I was cutting up.  On the one hand it was a delightful and inspirational show.  I was inspired at the amount of Hip Hop fused dancers that there were. 

But of course in pure Okima fashion I of course found something to gripe about.  The lack of African American presence bothered me.  We as black people ( well more of us than NOT) have natural rhythm.  Many of the Jazz Contemporary and of course the Hip Hop style dances come right out of the African America culture.  Our children don't seem to dance anymore.  What is that all about?  When I was in grammar school we used to have a yearly show at the Arie Crown Theater.  And we would put on a SHOW!  Much of our school time was devoted to getting ready for our big show.   The year that they chose me for one of the big dance numbers, I really thought that I had arrived.  That was my first real BIG achievement.  I was in the 6th grade, dancing onstage at the Arie Crown.  Whew that gave me such confidence.  And the school would also host a quarterly sock hop.    Me and my girls would hang out at my house and just make up dances.............. not for any special reason.  Just because it was fun! 

Okay high school.......... forget about it!  Stepping was KING!  My high school frat.........."Jon Quil - The Lovely Ladies of Lavender and Turquoise" were killer steppers.  Can I get a witness?  Juice!!! Where you at???  Holla if you hear me!  And we used to go to each other's houses, developing together, stepping routines (which is a form a dance) for the next party.  Every Lindblom (My High School) frat HAD to host a party........many of us partied at the long gone "Humming Bird" or the "Gentle Persuasion."  And we would go and step and dance and dance and step.    Okay let me come back to 2011......because I went there for a minute.  

But anyway..........I believe that those experiences have helped to shape the good moral upstanding parts of me.  And I believe that it would do the same for the tweeners and teenagers of today.

I know that times are hard financially..........but please let put our children in dance classes.  They may be harder to find these days.  OR..............start a step and dance ministry at your church and allow our children to benefit from our rich heritage of Dance. 

On the "Live to Dance Show", there was a troop of young white girls who were dressed "THRILLER" like and came out and danced to Michael Jackson and killed to the show.   Now there is nothing wrong with that.  I loved watching that.  Artistry and the love of it does not belong to black people only, but it should still be inspiring our children even in 2011.  It was Michael Jackson's dream to inspire all the young people of the world to dance.  But again we have to remember that Michael Jackson was born in the black side of town in Gary, Indiana.  He got his famous robot and moonwalk from watching Soul Train.   And let us again remember that Soul Train was started by a black man Don Cornelius.  It was a show that catered the to art form of the black dance experience.  Michael Jackson soaked it up and shared it with the world....................all except for us........it seems. 

Please make a conscience effort to dance again my good people and more important let's begin the movement to get our children to dance.  Dancing is always cool and always in style.  I want for us to dance these dances because they came from us.  Dancing will go a long way to reducing street violence!  When me and my girls were dancing all night and stepping all night at The Humming Bird........there was never a fear of gun or knife violence.  Our only enemy was sweat to our fresh perms..........

In the words of Salt with a Deadly Pepa........."Get up everybody get up".........and in the words of Chic.........."Everybody dance...do do do do clap your hands clap your hands."