"You're Puerto Rican? I thought you were black!"

The final line of the monologue from Les Rivera's Platypus, which he took from a real-life conversation with a friend of four years, illustrates the questions of racial identity, identification, and perception that color his first foray into original choreography.

The first public performance of Platypus will be at the Live Arts Brewery Second Thursdays event tonight, with Jaamil Kosoko and Daniele Strawmyre also previewing new work (all three are appearing in 8 at this fall's Live Arts Festival. But yesterday at the University of the Arts, I saw a sneak peek that he gave for a handful of dancers and choreographers, and me.

"For the past four days I've been just: 'I've gotta present my life to these people,'" Les says. "To me, that's a story from A to B."

Storytelling has always been a key part of Les's performance career. He traces much of it back to his time with the hip hop dance group Rennie Harris Puremovement, of which he was an original member.

"[Founder] Rennie [Harris] was bringing stories to the stage that people were not [otherwise] receiving, in ways that were not just simplified."

In the first section of Platypus, as I saw it performed yesterday, Les danced over a monologue his thoughts about racial identity and complexity, and explores his movement history: tae kwon do, gymnastics, and diving. In the second, he moves into salsa dancing, a passion of his mother's. The monologue continues, ending with that line: "You're Puerto Rican? I thought you were black!"

After the jump: b-boying to Elvis, and what's wrong with modern dance.

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When Jaamil Olawale Kosoko was a kid growing up in Detroit, he broke into the ice cream truck that his father, a Nigerian immigrant, drove for a living, and gave out free frozen treats to anyone who wanted them. "I didn't have any friends," he says. "I thought people would want to be my friend if I gave them free ice cream!"

Memories like this one, at times painful but always tinted with Kosoko's sense of humor, form the inspiration for the 28-year-old choreographer's dances like Or Maybe My Mother was an American Chameleon? A preview of this work-in-progress will be performed this Thursday, June 10th at 8pm for Second Thursday at the Live Arts Studio. The finished piece will be 1/8 of the Festival's 8 (eight choreographers / eight new works).

Though the piece's title is a reflection on the "ghost" of his schizophrenic mother, Kosoko is something of a chameleon himself. In addition to choreographing with his company KOSOKO PEFORMANCE GROUP since 2006, he is also a comedian, performance artist, arts manager, experimental vocalist, and sometimes drag bird (you may be familiar with his alter-ego, J-Luv, who co-hosted the 2009 Rocky Awards). "In one piece I'll have drag, then stand-up comedy, then pure dance and then a soap opera scene. I like that puzzle of 'How do you make that make sense?'" he says of the interdisciplinary nature of his work. That element is less intentional, he notes, than simply a product of his multi-faceted background.

Kosoko's childhood was split between Detroit, where he was born and raised, and his mother's native Natchez, Mississippi, where he moved by himself when he was 11 to take care of his ailing grandmother. Back then, his ability to move seamlessly between worlds had yet to be honed. "The nature of society in the South is different, and my mother's reputation had preceded her. To be an afro-centric, neo-soul, alternative, schizophrenic who had moved North . . . the whole town knew this crazy black woman." Through the teasing at school and caring for his grandma at home, Kosoko kept a journal of poetry--a journal he also kept private.

Find out whether anyone ever read those poems by clicking more.

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JANUARY 2010'S FEATURED ARTISTS AND PROJECTS

Whit MacLaughlin / New Paradise Laboratories
(FATEBOOK, 2009)
Dare to take a peek inside the brain of Whit MacLaughlin, the Artistic Director of New Paradise Laboratories and mastermind behind 2009's FATEBOOK. FREEDOM CLUB (in collaboration with The Riot Group); MORT (the third part of NPL's American Party trilogy preceded by BATCH and PROM); and his newest idea, F@#CK COMPUTERS. For more advance details on the new works, click here.

Miro Dance Theatre
Amanda Miller and Tobin Rothlein of Miro Dance Theatre will be showing a slideshow of their recent trip to India where they performed their newest work, How am I Not Myself? In the work, two classically trained dancers, one in Ballet and the other Bharatnatyam, examine the questions that come with dance, identity, and moving beyond the classical form. At the age of four Amanda Miller and Viji Rao began their classical training on opposite sides of the world. Now, thirty years later, following professional classical careers, they are both engaged in their own unique forms of contemporary dance. In How am I Not Myself? they join with video artist Tobin Rothlein to look at their transition from classical to contemporary with an exciting dialogue of movement and multimedia and a celebration of the contemporary and the unclassifiable.

Makoto Hirano and Ben Camp
Ben Camp and Makoto Hirano will be showing a few scenes that may or may not make it into their upcoming work, PunchKapow. PunchKapow is an original devised piece in development by Ben, Alex Torra, Makoto, Charlotte Ford, Mikaal Sulaimon, and Brett Cassidy. The piece is inspired by representations of violence and how much fun they can be - comic books, action movies, video games, and anime. People love violence, and we want to dive into the joy of fighting as much as the darkness. This piece is the first for an organization called Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, and will priemere in November.

WHERE AND WHEN
January 14, 2010 at 7pm
The Festival Studio
919 N 5th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
FREE (but limited) onsite parking + street parking abounds in the neighborhood
Cost: FREE

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
On the second Thursday of each month, artists from the Live Arts Festival artist residency program or a guest artist from the region talk about their work process and share their musings, imaginings and ideas that are the inspiration for what will eventually evolve into a new work. They'll be casual, intimate gatherings, so anything goes. The artists may perform segments of new work, tell stories about their un-traditional research, or just discuss what they're currently imagining for their upcoming piece. Your questions and feedback for them throughout the event are warmly welcomed. In traditional Festival-style, free beer will be offered to all!

JANUARY'S PRE-SERIES BONUS EVENT
For this month's Second Thursdays Series, you'll enter the Festival studio through AREA 919's gallery space. Between 6pm and 7pm, visit AREA 919 for a glass of wine and their Antique Collection of 18th and 19th Century works in stone, marble, iron, and wood from Europe, India, China, and America. For more information: www.area919.com