ahassan – Capturing Communities in Words and Images:

Studio 1- Ballet

Every morning for nintey minutes, the mens’ class practice Ballet techniques under different instructors. The same perspiring funk lingers in the studio as it does everywhere else in the school. The floor is quite bubbly from time and falls of ballet.

Eric has been in the ballet for twelve years. It shows in his poise and aura. It is cliche to say ballet dancers are like swans. Ballet dancers are fluid performers. Eric is an inspiring professional ballet dancer. He was chosen to be the Prince in Cast A of the Nutcracker performance.

A freelance instructor, Alexandre is a often at the Joffrey Ballet School. He is a walking accomplishment of a ballet career, his elocution and instruction encourages the students to be prepared for the “real world.”

The most energetic, he gives extra umph to his spinning and jumps. Here he is performing a simple ballet technique, sickling ( pointing) your foot away, and returning your foot sidways against the other.

“A product of the Bejing Academy of Fine Arts,” he says without hesitation. “My mom made me dance and do ballet as a child because nothing else interested her, I had no say.” Then he smiles and says ” Now I love the ballet, I hated it as a child, but famous actors and dancers come from Beijing. Someday, I will too.”

It was a strenous effort to photograph the dancers, their legs would occupy several square feet of space around them, the several square feet of space I needed to photograph them more efficiently. I was too close to Eric, and his foot, which I prefer to be the whole top right corner, is a way of saying ” you’re not welcome yet, but keep knocking.”

Precision with hips idle and legs moving independent from the body, ballet is succinct with physical prose.

Alan and Eric have their time in the air. With regular instructor Cammy, students were told to propel in the air and perform double heel clicks. Some with ease, others fell and stumbled and laughed it off.

After photographing this class, I tried my own windmill.

There were times when students would practice unsatisfied techniques during the five minute intermission. Most of them stretched out their limbs, Stephen decided to spin.

Extending one leg then stopping to spin three times seems as rigorous as it looks.

Two weeks from the Nutcracker Performance, the womens’ class joined the mens’ class in morning exercises. Women performed their precision with minimal effort while the men seemed to strain on several exercises.

Eric, a cavalier in both plays in Casts A and B, whil Stephen ( red overcoat) plays the prince in Cast A and the second cavalier in Cast B. Cory, (far left), is one of the menacing cats in Cast A, then the prince in Cast B.

Eric, the cavalier, with sugar plum fairy, Caroline.

Stephen , as the Prince, kisses Clara,the heroine and owner of the Nutcracker doll, with Alexandre, ( Clara’s godfather, a magician)

George, the artist director of the Joffrey Ballet School ( Center), sits with Stephen discussing subtleties and performance.

Abraheme Hassan

Studio 1

Tchaikovsky, Victorian, leotards, bulges, glutes, pink slippers, poise, and power. My initial thoughts of the ballet could be anonymous with anyone else – superficial. My time at the Joffrey Ballet School is insufficient; I’ve only scratched the surface. However, my preconditions have advanced and matured dramatically.
I grew up frolicking to Michael Jackson and MTV tunes, sparred with my older brothers in martial arts and wrestling bouts, and played every sport I could get my hands on. The performing arts (if you consider wrestling or martial arts – performing arts) were and are a significant part of my life. Ballet was the void and stagnant part of my curiosity. Ask any boy about the ballet, ‘ballet is for girls and sissies!” said my seven year-old cousin. “Sissies” in my neck of the woods were not respected nor harmed. Men who dance professionally other than hip-hop were like steel bubbles, floating in grace but with a macho exterior.
My curiosity of the ballet was reignited once again by the film “Billy Elliot,” a boy in a Northern England coal-mining town finds his true calling in ballet, a stark contrast to the his father and brother’s lifestyle. This project is my first glimpse of the ballet. Specifically, male ballet dancers, who testosteronal grace repulses many but intrigues and captivates me. Syncopated in classical composure is a delight you can enjoy and experience other than the clashing in sports.
Continue reading “Studio 1- Ballet”

St. Anne’s Convent

As you head east on 112 Ave, the road and sidewalk are covered from the fallen foliage with peeking patches of asphalt. Make a left, north onto 221 street, you’re met with the letters “JMJ,” fixed on top of a rusty gargantuan gate. I’ve been in the area, Queens Village, all my life and have never gone past the side gate entrance. For as all I know, this lot, which you can see through the gates – covers one or two acres of seclusion within Queens Village.

Queen of Peace Residence, a nursing home; shares the acred land with St. Anne’s Convent, or if you read the front gate entrance sign, Little Sisters of the Poor. I have never set foot in a convent, let alone past the front gate.

I hope to cohesively capture thiscommunity, in words and images, of the Sisterhood.

Richmond Hill

Entrance of Little Guyana: jewelry stores, salons, restaurants, delis are interchangeable West Indian, Guyanese and Indian products and services. A main difference between Jackson Heights and Richmond Hill is the cuisine and population. Guyanese food is less spicier than its counterpart and enjoys a less claustrophobic lifestyle. Otherwise, they both have a train track above their heads.

Khalid, 19, Trinidadian and sophomore at BMCC. A few blocks away from Little Guyana on Liberty Ave towards the edge of Richmond Hill, radiates a stronger Hispanic presence. With all the hues and tones of the neighborhood store fronts riding on the sights and smells, Richmond Hill is as multifaceted as its colors and people. “I was born and raised here and I see nothing hostile about the neighborhood, people are friendly, no tension beween the Guyanese and Indians. The train and traffic is what keeps you up at night.”

Ramo, Guyanese, 38, owner of the Ramo Jewelry Store for one year and owner of a previous store also on Liberty Ave for a decade has his finger down on the neighborhood. He shares half of his store with a hair salon. “Most of my customers are Guyanese and Trinidadian, the Indians hardly come to my store,” Ramo said with emphatic i’s and r’s. “Indians don’t go to Guyanese jewelry stores because we don’t have the designs they like and karat count,” with his arms crossed and raised brows,” and they’re cheap too, they don’t pay ticket price for Guyanese merchandise, not even from their own. But otherwise this neighborhood is pretty safe despite the tension.” Business is part bargaining, part culture.

Kumar, 45, Indian, Owner of Liberty Curtains for the past seven years. Kumar owns a second Liberty Curtains on Hillside Ave. “Richmond Hill is to the Guyanese as Jackson Heights is to the Indians, if they don’t recognize each other; at least they have their own neighborhoods.” Joseph, 50, Amerigroup Health Insurance Agent married to a Guyanese woman from Richmond Hill. “I was born to live here, everyone’s peaceful in Little Guyana,” Joseph said Richmond Hill. Joseph is multicuralism personificed; he lived in Abu Dhabi for 25 years and was born in India to Chinese parents; fluent in Hindi, Arabic, English, and Cantonese.

Back in 1990 to 96′, my uncle and father owned the most productive supermarket in Richmond Hill on 118th street and Liberty Ave. My brothers and I would run throught the packed aisles of West Indian products, much like the cars weaving and swerving on congested Liberty Ave under the A train. I only knew Liberty Ave, or “Little Guyana” for the predominant presence of Guyanese and Trinidadian people.

One day a Guyanese and Indian cashier exchanged hostile accents in my father’s store. And I didn’t know why some Indians didn’t recognize Guyanese people of having Indian descent. So I asked a few locals around Richmond Hill to tell me their stories about the ongoing tension, if there is, between Guyanese and Indians.

After that I went to the historic section of Richmond Hill which was an Italian neighborhood in the 1900’s to 1960’s. Along 86th ave, there is a handful of Victorian Houses which survived the years and are being supported by local legislatures to preserve and officiate them as New York City Landmarks.