Choreographer puts his ear to the streets
Moses seeks music to match new piece inspired by foster youths
It is Saturday, two days before the new year, on San Francisco’s Powell Street, where tourists laden with shopping bags and curiosity slow foot traffic. Then there’s the guy who just stops on the sidewalk, every 30 feet or so. To listen. “Do you hear that?” asks Robert Moses, founder and artistic director of dance the acclaimed company Robert Moses’ Kin. Moses, 55, is on the hunt for street musicians to contribute to his new dance piece. He is not talking about the tinny Santana riffs coming out of a nearby speaker, or the snare drum being played over an electronic track on Market Street. Everyone can hear those. Moses hears a separate musical strain, in the distance, although he is not sure of its direction. Also, it could be nothing. “It’s like when you buy a new car, and then suddenly you notice there are all these other Camrys on the road,” Moses said. A longtime choreographer and occasional composer, Moses developed his sometimes overtly acute musical awareness just in the past month. During this time, he has gone out every other day to listen to street musicians who might help him make “Bootstrap Tales,” running Feb. 23-25 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He has been to Santa Cruz and plans to hit Fisherman’s Wharf. Mostly he
sticks to the busy shopping area near his office on Market. On this Saturday, he tours a few-block area that includes the Westfield San Francisco Centre, the base of Powell Street and the Powell Street BART Station.
He encounters eight live acts within an hour but does not stop for all eight. “I have to like the music and think they can reproduce music in the range of what would keep the audience’s interest,” Moses said.
He keeps interactions with musicians brief. “If I stop them from playing, then I am taking their money,” Moses said. He carries $5 bills to drop in guitar or violin cases, compensating for time he does take.
He wanted street musicians for “Bootstrap” because they fit its loose theme — also inspired by the foster youths with whom Robert Moses’ Kin is working — of people who lack the safety net of a regular paycheck and/ or traditional family structure.
“I am still figuring it out,” he said of the new piece. He is not sure whether the street performers will need to do original compositions or can do covers. He is shooting for about a dozen musicians, but that number is not set. He will not tell their stories onstage, but he might craft abstract “character portraits” of them, through movement.
He knows the performers probably have been approached before with job prospects, or even promises of stardom. “Imagine all the people who come up to them to say they have an opportunity for them,” Moses said. “And (the musicians) just want to say, ‘Drop the cash and move on.’ ”
Wearing a baseball cap, jeans and running shoes, Moses approaches the performers humbly, after listening deeply. There is little trace of the esteemed choreographer and former Twyla Tharp dancer in the way Moses bobs his head, dad-style, to a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” being played by the band New Funk Generation in front of the Ross discount store.
When he approaches bass player Brian Compton, Moses looks a bit abashed at interrupting a fellow artist at work. Compton is gracious and listens to Moses, while hardly taking his eyes off his bandmates, who are depending on him to help keep rhythm on one of the most potentially lucrative days of the year.
“I have had a lot of people come up to me about projects,” Compton said later, by phone. Now 55, he has played on San Francisco’s streets for nearly 30 years. He also has traveled to England to play alongside Leon Hendrix ( Jimi’s brother), and produced an album by George Clinton’s son and fellow Parliament Funkadelic member, Tracey.
Most every opportunity has come from someone hearing him play on the street, Compton said. So he stays open to inquiries, like Moses’ about “Bootstrap Tales.” “I did find it interesting,” Compton said of Moses’ project.
Moses said he stopped for New Funk Generation because “those guys know what they are doing,” Moses said. “It’s deep-fried and a little bit overcooked, but it’s good.”
He was familiar with Compton before Saturday, and — perhaps inevitably for an artist who has worked in San Francisco for decades — already knows another musician he encounters on the Saturday search. Moses stops for a moment to listen to violinist Dennis Tolly, who has set up shop in an acoustically favorable corner of the BART station. He already knows Tolly can play, from having heard him accompany students at local dance classes.
But singer Jamal Corrie, 24, stationed just outside the San Francisco Centre’s entrance, is new to Moses, and he is intrigued. Corrie brings great sincerity and considerable vocal range to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and John Legend’s “All of Me,” drawing a crowd of listeners, most youngish and female.
Corrie, from Mountain View, has been doing this for three years compared with Compton’s 30, and he does not have a band relying on him. He seems willing to give Moses all the time he might want. Corrie plays an original song — also a ballad — at Moses’ request.
“Actually, I have wanted to be a composer for choreographers for a long time,” Corrie said. “And film, too.”
He let Moses listen to a piece of music he keeps on his phone. Its waterfall-piano sound, more classical than pop, helps persuade Moses to consider Corrie for his project.
“He is not just playing for the money,” Moses said. “He has some skill.”
Moses takes down Corrie’s number, as he did Compton’s and others before them. Sometimes he gives out his card instead, because the exchange is so hurried. But then “I don’t see them again,” Moses said. They have left the corner, or maybe town.
As of last week, Moses had not yet officially secured one street musician for “Bootstrap Tales.”
“We are six weeks out, and we don’t have any music,” Moses said. “That is really unusual. I have a really live relationship to this.”
He is not worried. Dance rehearsals started last week, and he already can feel the project jelling. He will follow up on leads he has gathered and return to the street until the music aspect is set.
“It is a cliche to say, ‘Trust the process,’ ” Moses said with a grin. “But you have to trust the process.”