Jarkko Lehmus Diary

Harlem Shuffle

Scottish Ballet's running this Dancers on Dance thing on their website. The PR-guys get us tickets for dance performances in Glasgow or Edinburgh and we write a few words and everybody's happy. Dance Theatre of Harlem was in town and I went to watch them on Tuesday. You can read my review on the Scottish Ballet site so I won't repeat much of it here. As you might have gathered already I only include enough shop talk to create a bridge to the story I really want to write.

So I went to see the show, mainly to check out the chicks, and stayed for the post performance talk with Mr Mitchell, the artistic director, and ended up being very impressed by the community- and work the company does. After the talk was finished I got to chatting with a couple of the people with the company, Joe the photographer and Kevin the wardrobe brother. After we got chucked out of the theatre we made our way to Bar Budda around the corner for a drink or five and hatched a plan to rock the town the next evening. After a bit of work, a few phone calls and assorted adventures it was time to get down to business: on Wednesdays there's a great R&B night in the Cube and with very little persuasion along the lines of: "I've got twenty beautiful black dancers from New York with me and we'd like to spend our hard earned in your establishment", I got the company on the guest list. So we waltzed in, set the house on fire and danced the night away. After a right old sweating session we made our way back to the hotel for a little chilling and chatting until the sandman shouted: "Time gentlemen, please!"

Ain't life grand? Photo by me©

Four hours later I woke up feeling as rough as a gang raped hedgehog. Was it really worth it? If I was a good boy I would have had a couple of drinks, a nice chat and went to bed early to be fresh for another days work. But would that have been as much fun? Hell no!

My friends in Harlem, I got you!

Posted by Jarkko at May 14, 2004 12:49 AM