Reading in D.C. with INSPIRIT Dance, March 8th and 9th

Something very cool has happened--I've been asked to be a part of a performance with INSPIRIT Dance Company in the next few weeks. Big ups to poet John Murillo ,who put me in touch with Christal Brown, the founder of INSPIRIT, after I made a trip to NYC last year.

The Company is using a few of my poems--about womanhood and sensuality, I believe--from my book, Conversion, in their new piece. I'm so excited to finally get to meet them and see the words come to full-bodied life. Needless to say, I am thrilled :-)

If you're in D.C. or will be there the weekend of March 8th and 9th, please come out to the performance. Details about the location are below:


Dance Place

3228 8th Street NW

Washington, DC 20017
Ticket Prices: $20 general admission;

$15 members, students, teachers (Pre K-12), professional artists & seniors;

$7 for children
For more information and directions, call 202-269-1600



It's only appropriate to end this post with a poem about dance that dances...

American Smooth

We were dancing – it must
have been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved
into the next song without
stopping, two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride—such perfect agony
one learns to smile through,
ecstatic mimicry
being the sine qua non
of American Smooth.
And because I was distracted
By the effort of
Keeping my frame
(the leftward lean, head turned
Just enough to gaze out
Past your ear and always
Smiling, smiling),
I didn’t notice
How still you’d become until
We had done it
(for two measures?
Four?) – achieved flight,
that swift and serene
magnificence,
before the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down.

--Rita Dove