ORDER BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY & SAVE 20%!
$40 gets you 3 Classes, Q&A with the teaching artists, Workshop Cypher and a Free Ticket to "Uncommon Ground" the T21 Launch Show (June 27th)
LoJoWERKz and EduRec PRESENT
THE FIRST T21 DANCE WORKSHOP - LIL BUCK!
We are also thrilled to announce our second teacher,
HAMPTON "XCERCIST" WILLIAMS!
This is your chance to learn from two of the most expressive,
uniquely skilled dancers in the game today!!
CLICK ON THE POSTER BELOW FOR FULL WORKSHOP DETAILS
WORKSHOP BACKSTORY:
Q - SO WHAT DOES THE TULSA RACE RIOT OF 1921 HAVE TO DO WITH STREET DANCE????
A - About as much as Memphis Jookin has to do with Classical Ballet.
Which is to say, from the LoJoWerkz point of view, EVERYTHING!!!
When we first saw Charles "Lil Buck" Riley dance in early 2011, the artistic kinship was immediate! We have spent nearly two decades developing a unique "old meets new" creative language, combining Street culture with older genres of art, so seeing what Buck and Yo-Yo Ma were doing in the "swan" piece was kinda like walking into a room full of chattering people and hearing someone speak your own rare, native language…and not small talk, but telling a deeply engaging story about the little-known history of your home town. Yeah… it was that kind of moment. Naturally we immediately gravitated towards him, gave him a quick phone call letting him know we would love for our creative paths to cross at some point. He was still relatively unknown at the time but we remained close observers and supporters of each step he took. And before we knew it BAM! his rocket took off, and to this day it's still rising! So when it came time to select the first Street Dance artist we wanted to work with in our T21 series of projects, Buck was already in the #1 slot.
We were just launching this little idea for a project, on a shoestring budget, with many odds against us. With the stellar career growth Lil Buck had experienced since we first talked with him about a collabo, we assumed we would not be able to compete with the international organizations lined up waiting to book him. It is a ringing testament to his integrity and heart that he was not only open to the idea, he made us feel like our project was just as important to him as his other bookings. (for some context, at the time he was fitting us in his schedule somewhere around his appearance in the Oscar-winning film "Her," opening New York City Ballet's current season as the lead in a new work, and in some hush hush talks with Spike Lee about a new project.) So we feel that the kinship we're feeling runs both ways. We can't wait to spend a few days with Charles sharing his skills and presence with our Tulsa family and letting him experience some of Tulsa's rich history as well.
In short, Lil Buck was the only dancer we felt could help us properly kick off T21…and we got him! Aaaand, let the magic begin!!!
(Big shout-outs to the incredibly foresighted, art-hearted Heather Watts and Damian Woetzel for formally ushering Lil Buck into the world of "High Art!" Several generations are now richer because of this single decision! Deep bow to you both.)
WANNA KNOW MORE?
Most people don't come to social media to read anything longer than a coupla sentences, but if you've read this far and you're still curious, here's some deeper history that will explain the roots of T21 and why Lil Buck is the perfect person to kick off the T21 series of projects.
Those who are familiar with the work we've written and produced over the past 18 years know that it is all built on one concept, combining old and new. The successful creative partnership Jerome and I have experienced is further evidence of this "founding principle." When we met in the early 90s it appeared that we were from two entirely different worlds, but it did not take long at all to realize that we both shared an odd, but similar root system. We were both children of the Hip Hop generation and both had a deep affinity for the golden age of movie musicals. We rarely met others with this same odd balance of cultural filters so it was like meeting a long lost brother. After producing several projects we began developing the distinct flavor of our creative language and over the years, our creative "style" became second nature. It seems to have been our native language from birth & now, after nearly two decades of creating work, we speak that LoJoWerkz "old meets new" dialect in near perfect unison.
The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 is another, not dissimilar, foundation upon which LoJoWerkz has been built. The blood-red threads of Tulsa's racially explosive history may seem barely susceptible in modern-day Tulsa, but these threads are inextricably woven into the fabric of our city. Similarly, the Riot history was the first subject we felt compelled to deal with at the beginning of our career. As individuals who spent their lives flowing back and forth between the rarely-intersecting worlds of White and Black culture, and as a creative team who spent equal time in the world of Hip Hop and Musical Theatre, we had a unique understanding of tensions that exist when someone attempts to walk on uncommon ground…and the high level of discomfort some people still have when it comes to mixing cultures. More than just a convenient topic, or an artistic gimmick, the underlying issues of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 are felt more deeply than we can express. Maybe this is why we continually feel compelled to revisit these topics when we are creating new work. It is, in essence, the reason we've established the T21 Project, as a specific collection of work deeply rooted in these topics.
May 31st is the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. We feel honored to have the opportunity to plant some seeds of unity we hope will continue to bear fruit in the years to come!
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