In 1999 Lana’s School of Dance was getting ready for their annual production. Our theme that year was “THE COST OF LASTING PEACE”. We were going to honor all branches of the armed forces.
I was looking for a dance that our advanced ballet class could do when I stumbled across Billy Joel’s “Goodnight, Saigon”. It was a song that was real and hard hitting. I knew the choreography had to be real and hard hitting also or it wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to disrespect our troops that fought so bravely in such a controversial war.
That’s when I contacted my good friend Dave McCoy who was wounded in Vietnam. I knew he would be straight with me whether I should even attempt this or just let it go.
One evening I took the CD over to his house and played it for him. He listened and before it was over had tears running down his face. He looked at me and said, “What’s your vision?”
So we sat up most of the night listening to the lyrics. We laughed and cried as he told me stories of Vietnam. Stories of war.
I went to work on my “vision”. I was working with high school students who weren’t even born yet during the Vietnam War. I showed them films of the war and explained the love hate relationship the soldiers had with the choppers. They hated the sound when the choppers were taking them into battle and loved the sound when they heard them coming to get them out of the hell they were in. I wanted the girls to dance from their heart.
With any creative process, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. This worked.
Our dancers have performed this at Veterans Day Activities, in front of the Vietnam Traveling Wall, and recently at the Veterans Legacy Ball where they were awarded the Mayor’s Choice Award.
It’s a dance of survival and camaraderie. “We would all go down together”.
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