It’s nice to get agreement. The consensus I’m hearing is that I have a bigger story to tell than I thought.
Everyone wants more still work. The motion-blur thing is great, but it doesn’t tell enough of the story. As a photographer, a lot of my interest in contra dance has been the challenge of extracting visually compelling images out of a complex, dynamic environment. That’s where I get my jollies. As a storyteller, and that seems to be the larger point of this project now, I need to expand my range. Some of it is in the body of work that spans 20 years, some of it I will need to shoot. Perhaps it is portraits. Perhaps it is dance venues. Perhaps it is the details and elements that tell you that you’re at a contra dance, besides the blurry bodies and joy-infused faces.
Rusty Freeman was close to apoplectic when he saw the work and heard my stories. "You’ve got a tiger by the tail here. This is going to be big." I need scholarship to accompany this project, and I need to expand my team. This is going to take some time to sink in—just what kind of project have I gotten myself into, and who else has to be included? Do I have the ability to actually pull this off?
It’s the best outcome from a good review event—support and fulfillment from what I have accomplished, and terror about how much I have yet to do.
It's not fair that my 4 a.m. writer's brain has gotten engaged in your project. Here are some narrative subjects that might go into your book.
1. Laying down the bamboo dance floor at Seattle Folklife Festival.
2. Sweeping floors in traditional dance halls.
3. People arriving/changing shoes/ uncasing instruments
4. Finding partners (a sequence of s.o. asking different people to dance, then standing in hands-four.
5. People looking up at the caller.
6. A lesson: people looking at a demonstration couple/quartet.
7. Specific moves: bowing, a gypsy, contracorners, chain-across, men or women in an allemande, etc. etc. etc.
8. People clapping after a dance.
9. The waltz.
10. Water bottles.
11. Packing up.
12. Cleaning up.
It's 5:54 a.m. The cat is incredulous, sitting by the computer and staring at me. Maybe I can go back to sleep, now. Do your own damn book!
I love you.
The Wife
Posted by: Robin Shapiro | April 15, 2007 at 05:56 AM
To the wife:
Tell me just how I am to blame for this?
Thank you, nonetheless.
The Husband
Posted by: Doug Plummer | April 15, 2007 at 07:17 AM
It's not only the creativity - you've got a doctoral dissertation going here. Anybody for a PhD?
Posted by: Elly | April 15, 2007 at 12:37 PM