MCLA Blog

A bunch of us talked about how we cannot believe it’s been for four days. It feels like 100. Today was mostly focused on the conference and hitting up the resource rooms here. I’ll explain all that in a bit, but it started off with a trip to City Center to see the Ron Brown showcase. It’s a modern dance company with heavy African influences and I was stunned watching it. I think if I personally get something out of this entire conference, it’s a new passion for watching dance. I’ve enjoyed seeing smaller shows in the past – but I need to experience more shows like the ones I’m seeing on this trip. I ran into and had a conversation with one of the Ron Brown dancers later on in the day and he actually came up to me and said he recognized me as the captivated one with his mouth hanging open in the front row during the showcase. It’s true.

We then headed to the Saturday Plenary, which just seemed to be another word for “long talk that went right over my head.” It should be made note of though because the talk was with none other than…DANNY GLOVER! Who is not Danny DeVito, as Haley got him confused with - she also got him confused with Morgan Freeman. You may know D.Glove (we’re best friends now so I can call him that) from such movies as “Angels in the Outfield” or “Operation Dumbo Drop.” He is also known for his humanitarian work.

A very blurry picture of Danny Glover. You get the idea.

Erica and I then headed to a very interesting talk about a dance company called Axis, which features disabled dancers and the challenges they face and the progress they are making. After this we got our first taste of the crazy resource rooms which are booths and booths and rows and rows of people trying to sell you their performers. It was a little overwhelming at first, but it was interesting to see the place where all the selling takes place

Dinner tonight was at Joe’s Shanghai, and the cuisine was Chinese. I felt much more comfortable with the menu and knew exactly what I was getting. I had to duck out early with Caitlin as we had to get to New World Stages to see “Altar Boyz” the musical. It was a good, fun (and free) show – perfect to just sit down and forget about the conference for a while. I headed back to the Hilton where the conference is and wandered through some showcases – but nothing was grabbing my interests – and now here I am!

I’ll leave you with this picture, taken in one of the resource rooms: