Hip Hop Hurray!

Wow!!  Truly just Wow! 

From me, Doug Jack. the director of the Opening Ceremonies of the Mediterranean Games in Pescara Italy:

Today Bryn and I had the incredible honor of auditioning a Hip Hop group from L’Aquila, the very town that was destroyed by the Quake. Literally, not one home is left inhabitable in the entire town. 

Now, I would like us all to re-read that last line and consider what that really means. In your mind’s eye, right now, travel outside of your house, travel up and over your home,  open the aperture to include your neighborhood. Now travel higher up and open the aperture to include your entire town…

Now you can continue this blog and see what their town is like.

The people of L’Aquila are all now living in tents on the outskirts of their ruined town. Not only do they have to bury their friends, family and loved ones, they also have to get permission and be escorted my police to go back and try to find their pets and feed them. If they are still to be found.

So this group of nine dancers shows up, and we share our common love for dance and the spirit of hope and beauty of expression in such a stark time. I tell them that my twin brother is a fireman a Captain in Southern California, and my older brother, was a California Highway Patrolman who was killed on duty in 1991. I know what it is like to live in California, and have been through 3 earthquakes, yet I have never seen their kind of monstrous pain, never.

The music starts and they begin to dance for us to their own steps. (We ask groups to show us a little of a prepared routine first if they have one.) We cannot even sit in our seats as Bryn and I jump up with our mouths open as tears flow freely down our faces as they start and KICK-BUTT with such a passion and focus not only because not only are they survivors, but they are by far THE BEST DANCERS we have seen in our audition series!

The best. This not only includes the Mediterranean Games. I am talking my six Olympic Auditions as well! We are shouting and applauding, absolutely floored by their talent!

Bryn and I immediately talk to each other while they dancing but never take I eyes off them for a second. (The music is loud enough so that we can have a private conversation  on the judging platform.) We begin planning instantly to feature them on the main stage in the Ceremony. Not because they are victims, but because they are just so Damn Hot and Wonderful. We are like kids watching the best show on Broadway. We are giddy from their performance; we are overjoyed and so humbled by the sheer talent and passion they exude.

We will take them, as well as their choreographers, to be on our team. They will also be assistants in the show, so that they can teach the other volunteers—and we can teach them the craft of Stadium Theater. 

I am in awe of the Triumph through Tragedy that makes these kids Heroes in my heart and in my life.

Consider that each has lost everything, including parents, brothers, sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends—and yet two weeks later they have the humble passion and fortitude to blow us out of our seats into a standing ovation while they are still dancing!

I go to sleep tonight knowing I am here to help these people heal and move forward to show the world that while the walls of their lives came down in an instant in the dark night two weeks ago, in two months the world will see vitality, victory, and a voracious human spirit that can only be called , the real beauty of the Possibility of People.

Viva L’Italia and Bravi to these ordinary people who are extraordinary!

Hip-Hop-Hurray indeed!