I think I've mentioned before that I attend a lot of dance performances and took much dance when I was younger. Last night was a new one though... I was asked to judge a local, amateur "Dancing With The Stars". A Cleveland-based liturgical dance company had this as the theme for their 30th anniversary and fund-raiser and asked me to be one of the "celebrity" judges. (I think that's one of the most laughable things on the planet. But, whatever. I'll admit what many accept as fact: I get around; a lot of people know me. But celebrity? Well... that's the type of thing which might go to my head. But I digress.)
Liturgical Dance is otherwise known as Praise Dance and is a well-developed aspect of African-American church life. Besides representing prayer and praise in movement, liturgical dance also tells of the African-American struggle. When done well, it can be powerful to watch. I can't say that I'm very knowledgeable about this type of dance but I'm acquainted with this particular company, Duffy Liturgical Dance, Duffy-Lit for short, and am personally fond of the founder/choreographer, Edna Duffy. When she phoned a month ago asking for my help, I said "Sure".
There was a ballroom in the Intercontinental Hotel on the main Cleveland Clinic campus, six teams of dancers, six judges, Rock 'n Roll and Rhythm & Blues music, good food and lots of fun. I'm afraid I was the Simon Cowell of the evening, but someone had to be. Also, I wasn't the only white person in the room. White Jew? Yes. White person? No. There were 3 others. Additionally, I feel like I made some good, new contacts. (That's one thing I do well at these types of events - network, network, network.) There were some rather high-profile Clevelanders in that room. A few of them now have my e-mail address. Good.
Unfortunately, it wasn't very well attended. They unknowingly planned the event on the same night as the Cleveland Museum of Art's Summer Solstice Party. I've talked about that party in past blogs, so I won't re-hash it. But suffice it to say, the Solstice party, which this year was expanded to 6000 and still sold out 12 weeks(?) in advance and is 1 mile from the Intercontinental, possibly ate into our audience. This was also my first time missing the Solstice party in 5 years, I think. Sad... especially considering the fact that this year I could have just flashed my employee badge and walked right in.
If there's another DuffyLit Dancing With The Stars in 2015, I'm sure they won't have it on such a high-octane evening. It was very fun and I wish there had been hundreds of people attending. They would've enjoyed it.
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