Lately it's occurred to me that in the past 10-15 years my musical tastes have totally changed.

Back in the 1990s, at any given time I always knew exactly what I wanted to listen to. Whether it was The Clash or or The Rolling Stones or Miles Davis or Pearl Jam or The Grateful Dead or whatever, there was no doubt, I was going to put it on and enjoy it!

Now, I rarely listen to my CDs at home, and when the TV is on or I'm out taking a dance class or in my car or at the club, the music I appreciate most is that which I've rarely heard. I know! What's up with that?!?

These days my favorite radio stations are the Spanish language pop station 92.1, the heavy metal station 106.7, and the hip-hop station 107.5.

Recently I've seen programs about Marvin Gaye and Queen on PBS. These guys were awesome and I am sorry I missed out on them. Curse my closed-mindedness! A couple of other people I'd like to hear more of are Elton John and Prince, and I do catch them at times on my favorite "hippie music" station (aka. the mountain) at 99.5 and "the party" at 95.7.

And it may surprise you to know that in the Hip-Hop dance classes I take at Cleo's we are more likely to hear Michael Jackson and James Brown than contemporary hip-hop. Now don't get me wrong, over the years the teachers have played some Snoop Dogg and Roots and Missy Elliot. But one day, much to my delight, one of my teachers played some Tom Tom Club!

Certainly the most intriguing group I've heard recently though has been Big and Rich. They appeared on a rerun of the show Las Vegas, and blew me away! If you've never heard them, they are truly unique: they do country music with a guy rapping on top of it. It's nice to see someone besides Emmylou Harris (who BTW was on Letterman just last week) bringing the legacy of Gram Parsons into the 21st century!

Over the years it's become obvious to me that any given work of art is not so much good or bad, as it is original or imitative (at best, and plagiaristic at worst). And the bottom line there is I feel a real urgency to get my site groja.com going under joomla! so that hopefully I can keep it secure with minimal effort and finally begin to promote it.

The Cleo Parker Robinson Dance (CPRD) Student Showcase took place on April 18th and 19th 2008.  I am happy to report that after six of these in six years it was the first one in which I felt totally comfortable dancing.

This is mainly due to the fact that this was the first year I've been taking only one class, Larry Southall's Hip hop class on Monday nights.  I've been taking Larry's class - off and on - since I started at Cleo's back in 2001, and so am familiar with most of the moves.  This allowed me to focus on memorizing the choreography.

Embracing the Challenge

Dancing is a very challenging art form, especially for someone who didn't start until relatively late in life.  For information on how I got started in all this, see my "saga of dancing in Denver" on the dancing page at tomh.info.

It can be difficult taking a class with people who are often 1/2 to 1/4 your age and yet may have 2-4 times more experience, and I am not going to get started concerning our culture's marginalization of this particular art form, or even do more than mention that there are very few men in these classes. For now it must suffice to say that I enjoy a challenge.

In prior years taking these classes was a very fresh, new experience, and I felt that I should try to catch up as quickly as possible.  Hence back then I would perform in as many pieces as possible, regardless of whether I felt ready.

So in addition to hip-hop, I would take african, ballet, jazz, and modern.  Just getting through the classes was a challenge, and memorizing more than tidbits of the choreography was simply out of the question.  I had to constantly remind myself that if I was a professional, I wouldn't be taking these classes, so it was OK to simply do my best.

Not Getting Any Younger

I'm definitely not getting any younger, but have gained a lot of experience and have learned the importance of pacing myself.

A few years back I somehow twisted my left knee, and learned the hard way that there is nothing worse than getting injured!  Now that my knee feels better, I am not about to risk doing anything that might bring that sort of pain back.

So unlike those in prior years, this year's showcase was a very positive experience!  Rather than needing a break from it all, I am inspired to getting back to other classes.

After seeing their performances, I am particularly interested in taking classes from the new hip-hop and african teachers.  Although modern, jazz, and ballet are definitely fun, hip-hop is the most contemporary of the offerings at Cleo's and african is truly liberating!

About the Photos

Please note that the reddish, live-action photos on this page were not  taken with a flash camera.  You should never  take pictures of a dance performance with a flash camera, because it can really mess up the performers. 

 The photo at left, however, was taken with a flash, so you can see our faces.  In front there's Rachel on the left and Ashleigh on the right.  Unfortunately Faleta was not available for this photo.  Standing there's me on the left, Sandy in the middle, and Mariana on the right.

Dancing is best enjoyed in real life, rather than in a blog.  So we'll see you at next year's show, OK?

So I organized all my CDs and got them put away and now am just not listening to much music.  What's up with that?

For one thing, the expense.  If I listen to my CDs, I'll just get tired of them and want to buy some more.  In light of the fact that I have a hi-def TV and Comcast is gouging me for $114.99 per month, it seems that leaving the TV on, and getting what I can from those investments, makes more sense than buying more music.

For another thing, art forms like Dancing and TV include music, so I can get it, and more, from them.

Then there's the, oh I don't know what to call it but will say it's the closed-minded genre/ego thing.  So many people have some little genre that they like to the exclusion of the others.  FWIW, it's not nearly so bad now as it was back in the early 1980s, when people's preference for classic rock, punk rock, or disco could actually lead to violence. But I am just sick of people who don't like music X, where X is hip hop, or country music, or hippie music, or classical music, or whatever.

I think it's the record companies: in an effort to sell us more product, they promote this sort of demographically-defined closed mindedness, and people's appreciation of art and others outside their demographic suffers.

For now, I'll get my music from what they play in the clubs and in the background of my favorite TV shows, and from the eleven dissimilar stations I have programmed into the buttons in my car.  (FYI the only one duplicated in the two sets of six is 92.1, Super Estrella!)