May I Borrow?

30 teens. 2 weeks. A lot of dance. A lot of braids.

Dancer-choreographer Elizabeth Johnson directed the National Teen Institute at the University of Maryland, July 28-August 1, 2002, during "Hallelujah/USA," the culminating event of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's national community performance initiative. This story, about some themes that emerged during the institute, will be published in the 2003 C.A.R.T.S. (Cultural Arts Resources for Teachers and Students) newsletter, and is published here by permission.

Elizabeth Johnson (center, back to camera) with dancers at the Teen Institute. Photo by Linda Burnham

Her given name is Pang Houa Vang, but everyone calls her Cherry. She is a lively 17-year-old, a first generation American living with her family in Minneapolis. She studies and performs the traditional Hmong dances of her native culture, and can hold her own when she hears a hip-hop beat.

She is one of the many, many extraordinary young people we encountered in the 15 cities and four years of the "Hallelujah" project. In communities across the country we asked the question, "What are you in praise of?" Responses ranged from the first cup of coffee of the day to the first light of the new millennium. Responders included Vietnam vets and pacifists, reverends and rabbis, those who had never performed and professional artists, the very old and the very young. We found people eager to tell, and to move to their stories.

The young people, who savored the chance to be listened to and to create with others, were particularly responsive.

When the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company left Detroit, we said goodbye to Lydia and the Liturgical Dance Collective, and to Edgar and the All City Men's Dance Ensemble. Then we met Cherry in Minneapolis through the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women. Then we met Valerie from the Boston Arts Academy and Scott the skateboarder and Scott the breaker and Olivia and hosts of other memorable adolescents. Meanwhile back home in the metro D.C. area, the Teen Exchange teens were developing original pieces with themes ranging from September 11 to teen magazines. We knew we had to get all these guys together to create with their diverse skills and experiences.

With the help of the Surdna Foundation, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange launched the National Teen Institute. Thirty teens from across the country gathered at University of Maryland for an intensive two weeks of dance and composition classes, rehearsals and creation. They came from Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and California. They were African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian. They studied diverse dance techniques, from jazz and modern to salsa and traditional Hmong. Some were dramatic, some were shy. Some skateboarded, some studied the Bible. Some liked hip hop, some liked punk. And despite or maybe because of their differences, they really wanted to like each other.

We explored the concept of borrowing

When Dance Exchange was in Los Angeles during the "Hallelujah" project in 2001, a Christian Reverend said to a Buddhist monk, "I would like to borrow your laughing god." In the "Hallelujah" performance, we created a structure where dancers from our intergenerational, intercultural dance company performed movements from Taiko drumming in a square-dancing reel structure. When two dancers encountered each other, they asked, "May I borrow your _____" before continuing the dance.

We borrowed the concept and made it our own for the National Teen Institute. On the first day of the National Teen Institute, teens were asked what they would borrow from a political leader, from a pop star, from a teacher and from Elvis Presley. They were asked to make a movement for each word of their response, creating an equivalent visual expression of the sentence in dance.

When we encountered the word "borrow" in the sentence, teens realized that the movement needed to begin and end in the same place. They said, "The thing about borrowing is you have to give it back." Each student shared the same movement vocabulary for shared words, and created their own movements for their personal responses. They taught each other their movement responses to the question, and learned each other's movements. By the end of the day, each student had phrases of shared and borrowed material. And they knew something about the people they were dancing with.

Cherry and seven other girls from Minneapolis arrived the second day of the institute. Class was beginning and we realized we had sent their luggage with their dance clothes ahead to the host families. With no prompting teens started offering to share clothing to total strangers. "I have a top that will fit you." "Here's some pants you can borrow…" and within a few minutes everyone was outfitted and ready to dance.

That evening at a potluck dinner, the Hmong girls started talking to the girls from Detroit about dancing that day. They commented about how much happens in the lower part of the body in the Afro-Haitian style of the Detroit girls' movement. Cherry started demonstrating the intricate and delicate hand movements of the Hmong tradition. The next day in class, Lydia from Detroit taught everyone the lower body of her rhythmic foot phrase, and Lisa and Cherry taught "peacock hands." Then we put the two together. The lower body and upper body moved in completely different, but complimentary styles. This became a metaphor for the teens in their time together, in and out of the studio.

Throughout the Institute, teens borrowed from each other's cultures, and created their own culture that was about sharing their differences. They could be seen in their off time teaching each other salsa in the courtyard, playing eclectic music and doing line dances. The African-American girls started braiding hair. Soon, they were braiding blonds, brunettes, males and silky Asian locks. When the workload got too much, they started teaching others how to do it. The cornrows became an unspoken uniform, and a process of informal connecting.

From the personal to the poetic

In classes, participants articulated what they would like to borrow from each other. They said things like, "I would like to borrow your right to vote. I would like to borrow your living grandparents. I would like to borrow your unique style." And then they danced together in a series of lifts and support sequences.

We created a piece that raised questions about what is OK to borrow, and what is sacred. "Toothpaste, but not toothbrush. My friends, but not my boyfriend." The teens discovered it is OK for ideas to be borrowed, but not without asking. They created an environment of mutual respect.

In a few days of work, we created a piece that included their writing, their dancing, and their definition of what it means to borrow. The multi-layered work had gymnastics, personal stories, popular music and quiet moments. It demonstrated the beauty in blending ideas. Concurrently, Liz Lerman and the Dance Exchange Company rehearsed with guests from multiple "Hallelujah" sites for the final "Hallelujah":USA. The week following the National Teen Institute teens joined the professional company and guests from across the country in a massive performance where they had the opportunity to perform a segment of their piece "May I Borrow".

The teens moved beyond an "everybody is the same" mentality without pointing out and objectifying differences. They adopted, modified, and personalized shared information. They developed friendships through a process of connecting, literally, with each other. In an era when young people are so often labeled as violent, apathetic, or obstinate, watching these events transpire was particularly meaningful. We witnessed an alternative picture of young Americans: mutually respectful, engaged, cooperative.

At the end of the Institute, everyone returned home with new skills, and braided hair.

Elizabeth Johnson is a member of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange company and the director of the organization's Teen Exchange program.

Original CAN/API publication: March 2003