How to do the lemon dance
JaQuel Knight choreographed N.E.R.D. and Rihanna’s “Lemon” video, and he really wants you to learn it
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JaQuel Knight knows how to get the world dancing. The North Carolina-born, Atlanta-bred choreographer is responsible for Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” a video so iconic it forever altered the careers of two artists who had nothing to do with it: Kanye West and Taylor Swift. He's also collaborated with Big Sean, Cher, Britney Spears, and with Tinashe on “All Hands On Deck.” Knight is currently working on his biggest-ever work with Beyoncé: Coachella 2018.
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This year, it’s Knight’s choreography in the music video for “Lemon,” the new single by N.E. R.D and Rihanna, that’s blowing up timelines everywhere. Directed by Scott Cudmore and Knight’s old friend Todd Tourso, who brought him on board, the clip explodes from an opening scene of Rihanna shaving dancer Mette Towley’s head, and into a sizzling solo performance in an empty neon-soaked mall. Knight says it was “a dream come true” to work with his teenage idol Pharrell, and went in with the intention of creating something both accessible and unifying. “I always try to think of the people,” Knight told me over the phone on Friday, on his way to practice for N.E.R.D.’s marquee performance at Complex Con. “It's kind of like a healing source — how can we use dance to change the world?”
Knight proceeded to break down his process and research for choreographing “Lemon” for us, his hopes for its reception, and just what a “tutorial” really is.
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What kind of research did you do for this video?
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I spend a lot of time going back and looking at how "Single Ladies" took off.
What it was about "Single Ladies" that made the entire world want to do it. Then I went back and started studying the '70s. What was so cool about the 70s that people just went out and they danced? From the Hollywood Gogos to Soul Train, most people are dancing their hearts out. So I spent a lot of time looking at that. Thank God for YouTube! I spent a lot of time looking at those videos. What is it about what they're doing that's so captivating and so magical, and what's that for us now in 2017?
What was the answer?
It's freedom. It's not holding back. It's not being placed in the box. It's doing what feels good to yourself. It's not worrying about others. It's wanting to have a voice. All of those pieces, it's making sure we have that now.
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How were you spending time with "Lemon" at the very beginning to develop the choreography?
My creative process is always blasting the record wherever I can.
I love blasting it in my car, if I'm on a plane, I'm blasting it on my headphones, just allowing the record to soak into my bones, get deep in my soul. Then when it's time to get in the studio, I let whatever's been manifesting within just come out and let it speak for itself. I turn my recorder on my computer and get the rest of my team and just start jamming. What sticks, sticks, and what doesn't, doesn't. It's as simple as that.
You previously mentioned that when when you're designing dances, you intentionally put something simple in, so any person at home can you can imitate it, like the hand movement in "Single Ladies." Does "Lemon" have these little flourishes?
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Absolutely. Every piece of "Lemon" is a named dance that I went through. This [video] is super special to me because it's a marriage of multiple dances that all have names, all have an identity, all have different meaning, all have different energy.
Usually, you just choreograph a routine and you may put a few popular dances in there throughout. But the goal with this was to make it a group of popular dances, so it was really cool.
Would you say this project was made moreso with that intention than other pieces you've choreographed?
Absolutely. This project, the goal is to make people dance, and remind people that dancing is good. It's good for the body, it's good for the mind and it's good for the soul. That's the purpose of the project let dance heal the world.
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What's the trick for creating something that's so impressive but that keeps in mind a big tent of people actually performing it?
You know I often asked myself the same thing. But I think it's just me being super-comfortable with who I am as person. It's deeper than the choreography. It's me being free to express myself, and not being forced or blinded by what else is going on, what other people are doing in their videos, what the new trend is.
This is how I interpret the music.
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Mette said that her favorite dance was the "I C Dead People." Did you have any any particular favorites?
That's one of my favorite moves too. We have a dance called “The Obama” that I really enjoy. There is a "Lemon" dance that is repeated throughout the video, so I'm just waiting to see who can find it, it's nice and fun.
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Can you talk more about the process of editing together a single fluid piece from individual dances you've designed?
It's allowing the music to speak. I don't really force things to the music. You can have something great but if it doesn't match the music, you change it. You go to somewhere else or you let your body find what should happen next. You let your body speak to the music. That's my process, literally day in day out I'll record a piece, then I'll come back in that day and I'm like "OK this didn't sleep well with me, let's change this, we tried to force this, let's pull it back.
" That's my process until it's time to shoot, literally.
For me, the source of the video's energy comes from the opening scene of Rihanna shaving Mette's head. Were you aware of that scene when designed the choreography, and did it affect your finished product?
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Absolutely. What happens is that scene triggers the dance. I can't wait for the rest of the project to unleash itself, because that scene is what triggers it. That scene is letting go of all your worry, all the security, everything the world has placed on you, it's just letting it all go. Whether you're male or female, black or white, that scene is for everyone. And the dance is the liberating moment, that freedom, that "Wow, here you are, you're reborn."
The third section of the video where Mette is performing in a relatively stationary position is another big contrast. What was that like to choreograph?
I mean, that's the heart of the project.
That's why you would never find us calling it a music video. These are tutorials, new age tutorials. That's us teaching you at home the dance. That's the project: "Tutorial No. 1: Lemon." The blue theme is that.
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What does the idea of a tutorial mean to you in 2017?
It’s teaching the rest of the world the way, the new-new. How to be a part of the way and get on the good stuff, sharing the secret. Here it is, here's the tutorial right here. Learn it and you'll be a new person. Allow yourself to get lost in it.
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Origins of dance.
José Limon - Freedom to Dance Jose Limon's Dance Technique
Based on the Humprey-Wademan technique he studied with, José Limon created his own technique that explores the use of force and energy in relation to gravity and weight work in terms of falling, rebounding, and restoring balance. This technique uses the movement of the breath through the body, the feeling of weight and "heavy energy" in the body, the movement of weight between different parts of the body to create a fluid transition from one body position to another.
Biography
José Limón is one of the brightest representatives of modern dance. He is an American dancer and choreographer whose art has become a bright page in the history of modern dance. Jose Limon's dance technique is one of the leading techniques in modern dance and is the complete opposite of M. Graham's dance technique.
José Limón, Mexican by birth. Born January 12, 1908 in the city of Culiacan, Sinaloa state in Mexico.
His real name is Arcadio. He was brought up in the Catholic spirit. At 1915 HE moved to America and in 1928 he began studying modern dance with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. And already in 1934 I became their assistant at a seminar at Bennington College, which was held in Vermont. Until 1945, he worked in their troupe, and in 1945, together with Doris Humphrey, he organized his own group and directed it until 1958, being both a choreographer and a performer of leading parts in performances. In 1960 he received an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connemicut, USA. From 1964 he leads the troupe of the American Dance Theater. X. Lemon also works hard at home, in Mexico. His integrity as a performer continued until 1969. And on December 2, 1972, Jose Limon died. His troupe continued to live fully and creatively, touring, preserving the legacy of its founding. In 1973 the troupe toured Russia.
It is important for a choreographer to find his own style, this style is the thirst for dance.
The theory of D. Humphrey had a great influence on the formation of the views of X. Limon, according to which “all body movements are phases and variations of two main moments - falling and getting up. They have a range of fluctuations in the boundaries between the immobility of balance (vertical position) and the extreme degree of its violation, when the body is completely in the power of gravity (horizontal position).” These principles of movement became the basis of his technique. This is a constant "game" with gravity, a "gap" between top and bottom. The feeling of heaven and earth, heaven and hell. Always in two directions.
“Like a dancer, José Limón constantly confronts danger, going through the whole spectrum of body movements between freedom from gravity and complete submission to its forces, between the moment of hanging and actually falling backwards - this circle of movements Doris Ham-Frey called the “arch between two deaths”. The style of his dance is least connected with the fixation of the end point of the movement and the end points in the technique of X.
Lemon are the continuation of the movement. The coloring of movements is based on the presence of a constant feeling of light strokes.
Each gesture is subject to an internal state, as it happens in other modern dance techniques. X. Lemon's technique is characterized by a strong masculine beginning, often acquiring the national coloring of Mexican and Indian art, which was determined by its origin. The expression of a manly beginning is also the influence of the Renaissance art, which he studied at the University of California. Thus, his original plastic style, the principles of his technique, are born. In his work there is a synthesis of American modern dance and the traditions of Spanish and Mexican art.
In his performances, X. Limon achieved absolute spiritual self-expression. His focus is on showing the peak of human relationships. Remembering, John Martin said that the aesthetics of Jose Limon is not at all connected with bravura technique, which is characterized by virtuoso jumps and rotations.
José Limón | Belcanto.ru
He is recognized as one of the greatest masters of Art Nouveau. His name is associated with the dance technique developed by him and widespread in the world, the keeper of which is the dance group founded by him more than sixty years ago, which still operates today, uniting high-class performers.
José Limón was born on January 12, 1908 in Mexico, but lived in the USA from the age of 7. Fascinated by dancing, Jose Limon entered the school of Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman.
Having danced in their troupe for almost 10 years, he began to stage his own choreographic numbers. Of his first productions, the Dance of Death, Mexican Dances were successful, and of particular note is Chaconne in D minor to the music of Bach, which Limon staged in 1940.
He sought his own funds to fuse European classical music and American modern dance. But the experiments were interrupted by the war.
Returning from the army in 1945, José Limón decided to form his own dance troupe. He began to take classical dance lessons - which was a little unexpected for a thirty-seven-year-old artist.
His aesthetic credo lies in his words: “In a form close to ritual, dance can show both the great tragedies of all mankind and the huge impulses of one person. Art has never been so necessary for people as it is today. Like the art of such great masters as Giotto, dance should influence people so that they become better.”
He set up his own company in 1947. And almost immediately after his troupe gathered and worked together, he staged a twenty-minute ballet, which went down in the history of world choreography.
On August 17, 1949, as part of the American Ballet Festival at Connecticut College (New London, USA), the José Limón Dance Company performed the Moor's Pavane for the first time.
The choreographer himself performed as Othello.
This ballet is recognized as the pinnacle of José Limón's work, a masterpiece of Art Nouveau. The depth and power of Shakespearean tragedy are contained in the strict form of the measured court dance of the sixteenth century. There are no scenery on the stage, and all attention is focused on the dance, in which every movement, every look is filled with meaning, verified and perfected. Luxurious costumes were stylized under the Renaissance.
José Limón took from Shakespeare's Othello the main thing - the relationship of four characters, he created a kind of plastic quartet, consisting of two married couples - Othello - Desdemona, Iago - Emilia. Dancing a ceremonial and complex pavane, they move from boundless trust to boundless cunning. The handkerchief presented by Othello to Desdemona becomes the fifth character, the messenger of fate, passes from hand to hand, tightening the knot of a fatal outcome more and more tightly.
"Moor's Pavane" was perhaps the first attempt by American modern dance to go beyond the esoteric sphere, abandon abstract images, establish "external contacts" with other areas of choreography, attracting "alien" means - from costume to plot. With "Pavana Moor" a slow oncoming movement of modern dance and classical dance began.
In 1954 the ballet The Traitor was staged to the music of Gunther Schuler. It has content no less tragic and difficult to reproduce than that of Shakespeare's tragedy: it is The Last Supper, the betrayal of Judas. Lemon showed extraordinary imagination within the framework of his style, recreating the gospel story. In The Traitor there are much more plastic poses and less variety in the dance itself than in Pavane, but this makes the ballet no less impressive.
Lemon "saw" his ballets the way an artist sees a painting, he found such means of expression that evoke the necessary associations with the biblical story. At the same time, he managed to show his heroes at different moments of their state of mind.
For example, spiritual exaltation, the humility of aggressive people in the presence of Christ, the confusion of the apostles during the Last Supper, reproduced only by the expressive “dance” of hands over the table.
José Limón was one of the few choreographers who considered it his duty to respond to current events, and many of his ballets reflect the author's political views. Created in 1958, Missa Brevise to the music of Z. Kodály, the choreographer pays tribute to the freedom fighters in Central Europe, and the production Unsung (1970) is dedicated to the memory of the indigenous people of America. Its heroes are legendary Indian chiefs, and in this ballet Lemon brought to perfection the style of male heroic dance he created.
José Limón's troupe consisted of only 16 people, including the choreographer. He danced for a long time - the last time he took the stage in 1969.
His most popular performances are Lament for Iñacio Sanchez Mejias to a poem by F. Garcia Lorca and music by Norman Lloyd, Obsession in the Night to music by Prio Renier, Mexican legend La Malinche to music by Norman Lloyd and The Emperor Jones based on a story by Eugene O'Neill and music by Brazilian composer Heitor Vila-Lobos.
In them, with great skill, the choreographer reveals the psychological state of the characters.
José Limón staged Dances for Isadora, Orpheus, Carlotta for the women's group of the group. "Dances for Isadora" to the music of Chopin aroused particular enthusiasm among ballet critics. They compared the ballets of two masters, Lemon and Bejart, and came to the conclusion that the choreographers set themselves different tasks: Bejart created the image of Duncan, and Lemon composed Duncan's dances, and did it brilliantly, because he had truly choreographic thinking. Plotless dance number "Choreographic offering" to the music of I.S. Bach Lemon was staged in honor of his teacher Doris Humphrey.
He worked to the last - in 1972, the premieres of "Carlotta" and "Orpheus" to the music of Beethoven took place. And Jose Limon died on December 2, 1972 in Flemington (New Jersey, USA). In 2000, the Dance Heritage Coalition named Jose Limón America's Indispensable Dance Heritage.
D.
