#music-and-dance

#music-and-dance

As Vincent Minnelli and Bob Fosse artfully demonstrated, music and movement - song and dance - are powerful vehicles for not only conveying deep emotions but enrolling audiences in leaps of joy and amazement and flights of mind. Daring to dare is the sentiment at the heart of a movie musical, and the quality that moviegoers respond to. The Testament of Ann Lee isn't exactly a musical in the sense that the songs don't tell the story.

Humans spontaneously synchronize to a broad range of stimuli: synchronized walking, turn-taking in conversation, marching, dancing, and the in-unison singing of "Happy Birthday." Synchronization is shown especially in dance, where planned coordination is the goal. Dancers' sophisticated timing skills are particularly important for coordinating with other dancers in duet or group choreography/improvisation. The term entrainment is usually paired with the notion of coordinated rhythmic movement. It describes a phenomenon in which two or more independent rhythmic processes synchronize with each other.

Now in its 25th year, the Festival will run each and every week and weekend presenting 6 months of admission-free performances reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the Bay Area. The 2025 full schedule has yet to be announced, but there's typically events scheduled until November and is located between Mission and Howard Streets and Third and Fourth Streets in downtown San Francisco.

Aging is a complicated thing, and no two people age in the exact same way. You might encounter someone in their seventies who seems decades older; you might also take in a jazz performance by a centenarian saxophone player. A few weeks ago, I saw Willie Nelson, still crooning and playing the guitar at the age of 92. Not everyone has the same support infrastructure as a touring musician - but that doesn't mean there aren't applicable lessons to be learned here.