TOP 10
SINGLES
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TOP 10
ALBUMS
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The Middle
Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey
Psycho
Post Malone Feat. Ty Dolla $ign
Nice For What
Drake
Never Be The Same
Camila Cabello
Delicate
Taylor Swift
No Tears Left To Cry
Ariana Grande
In My Blood
Shawn Mendes
Meant To Be
Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line
God’s Plan
Drake
Mine
Bazzi
EVERYTHING IS LOVE
The Carters
Nasir
Nas
Youngblood
5 Seconds Of Summer
Liberation
Christina Aguilera
Post Traumatic
Mike Shinoda
The Greatest Showman
Soundtrack
SQUARE UP (EP)
BLACKPINK
Redemption
Jay Rock
?
XXXTENTACION
KIDS SEE GHOSTS
KIDS SEE GHOSTS
Presented by
wireless
Dominican-American dancer Marielis Garcia
“I would love for people
to recognize the true fold of
dance — the various complexities
Caribbean L 46 ife, Jan. 18–24, 2019
of the physical and mental
specificity it takes to both be
a dancer and a dance creator,”
said Garcia.
Many times audiences place
the expectation of fully understanding
a dance before they
can enjoy it, said Garcia. But
she wants people to view dance
similarly to how they consume
and relate to music.
“I would love for people to
find themselves within dance
performances,” she said. “There
is no right or wrong, and you
don’t go to the symphony and
feel like you have to know the
story the composer was trying
to tell — the same goes for
most dance concerts.”
Garcia grew up in the
Inwood neighborhood of Upper
Manhattan to parents from the
Dominican Republic, and spent
most of her teenage years in
New Jersey where her family
moved afterwards. Following in
her older sister’s footsteps, Garcia
began taking up dance at a
local school and discovered her
love for dance. She returned to
the city to complete her studies
at Marymount College, where
she completed a degree in fine
arts.
She considers herself to be
a contemporary dancer who
enjoys dances that physically
challenge her, and continually
trains in ballet to improve her
capabilities.
Most of her formal education
is complete but she still finds
herself acquiring and learning
new skills everyday.
“You never stop learning and
you’re always practicing,” said
Garcia. “Even though I had
professional dance training, I
still take open classes.”
One of her favorite classes
is led by Israeli dancer Zvi
Gotheiner at City Center Studios.
She says there is always
a new and worthwhile experience.
“His class has an amazing
array of artists that come
through in each class, watching
the variously trained bodies
do similar movement is informational
— I’m always learning,”
said Garcia.
Other learning aspects come
in the form of rehearsing and
creating choreography for
modern dance. Taking great
pride in her Dominican heritage,
Garcia says even when
she’s not thinking of it — bits
of her culture sneak into her
creativity.
“I’ve never made a piece
using traditional Dominican
music, but sometimes when
I’m in the studio, creating
movements, I’ll put on music
that’s comforting — music that
reminds me of home,” she said.
“Whatever music the composer
might have brought in, it’s
always fun to see what matches
up and what doesn’t.”
But she feels no pressure to
create work reflective of her
culture. She’s come to accept
the multitude of ways one can
celebrate their heritage, and
feels she fulfills it often.
“When I was in my early
teens I was trying to figure out,
or understand where I could fit
in my culture, and as I grow up,
I have figured out that there is
no right or wrong way to be
yourself,” said Garcia. “Despite
Dominican music not being
the literal music that accompanies
my work, or making a
dance in which the topic is the
challenges of Caribbean transplantation,
I do feel all that of
that influence and history is in
the DNA of work I create.”
Aside from music, she
is inspired by a lot of established
dancers. Some of her
inspirations are Anne Teresa
De Keersmaeker, Pina Bausch,
Maguy Marin, Meg Stuart,
Crystal Pite, Kate Ware, Kimberly
Bartosik, Shannon Gillen,
and Helen Simoneau.
One of the dance styles
Garcia enjoys is Butoh — an
extremely slow-paced style
of Japanese dance that often
exposes the endurance of its
performer. Since discovering
it, her mindset as a dancer is
stronger.
Garcia says her style of dance is very contemporary, but she
appreciates many forms of dance, particulary those that
challenge her mentally and physically. Rudy Collins
Continued from Page 45
Poet honors incarcerated women
incarceration for Black women
rose 700 percent between 1980
and 2014. For Hill, that devastating
number spurred her to a different
kind of action: she wrote
poetry to honor those incarcerated
women, and the women
before them.
They are, she says, “love letters”
gathered in six groups
in her book, beginning with a
photo of her fierce grandmother.
Hill admits that Harriet Beecher
Spruill-Hill was never incarcerated
in the physical sense;
instead, she was the victim of
“Jane Crow styles of oppression…”
The photo kicks off the
first segment, which honors
ancestors.
Based on a book by history
professor Kali Nicole Gross, the
second section of Hill’s book deals
with historical African American
women, in poems that “attempt
to create first-person testimonies…”
They were women who
weren’t necessarily incarcerated,
but were instead directly, often
instantly punished for crimes
committed.
Hill’s third portion focuses
on writers such as Ida B. Wells
and Zora Neale Hurston, and
women like Eartha Kitt and
Sonia Sanchez, who used their
talents and networks for political
activism. Her fourth segment
“focuses on what it means to
hurdle; to spring forth” beyond
the bonds that held this chapters’
subjects back. The fifth section
is devoted to Assata Shakur,
a woman Hill calls “a second
Harriet Tubman…”
Hill’s final chapter is devoted
to connections and how there
is an arc between “bound”
women and their families and
children today. In this chapter,
Hill includes “an autobiographical
journey,” as the mother of a
Black man, and her heartache
over his addictions.
Looking much like a historical
narrative, the front cover
of “A Bound Woman is a Dangerous
Thing” is very misleading.
Readers will want to know
that this is not strictly a history
book. Yes, there’s history inside
it — brief, fascinating history;
biographical clips; and wonderful
period photos – but that’s not
the focus.
Instead, author DaMaris B.
Hill offers too-short introductions
to various Black women
throughout history before presenting
poems she wrote, based
on each individual woman’s situation.
Names may be familiar,
while others are not, and the
poems vary: a few are wry, almost
biting, with just the barest touch
of modern sarcasm. Most are
loaded with symbolism and metaphor,
made to make you think.
For lovers of poetry, that mix
here will be welcome and powerful
but for readers expecting
something else, the presentation
could be a head-scratcher.
All your life, you’ve been
warned not to judge a book by
its cover, and that’s appropriate
advice for a poetry book that
masquerades as history. Browsers
who aren’t cautious, beware
of that before putting “A Bound
Woman is a Dangerous Thing”
in your hands.
Continued from Page 45
Book cover of “A Bound
Woman is a Dangerous
Thing” by DaMaris B. Hill.