KABELO & DEBBIE RAKUSIN'S DANCERS

KABELO
When Afropolitan booked Kabelo to perform at their magazine launch last Wednesday, they didn’t realize that his new musical director was Thatch Music.  The result – a massive, pumping sound from one of the country’s biggest kwaito stars.  With a great venue (Katzys) and a show-stopper performer, Afropolitan had all the essential elements for a night to write about.  Jaydine musically directed Wednesday’s performance and had very little time to prepare all the music for the JHB function.  Kwaito music often contains percussive loop samples and deep bass lines, this allowed us, due to the short turn-around, to produce a show that was loop based, rather than pre-produced where the arrangements and set lists were fixed.  A loop-based show allows more freedom on stage and gave Kabelo the space to freestyle and engage with his audience on a deeper personal level, which, at Katzys, was a winner!

James was across town from Jay with a big band function at Urban Tree.  Carla Mayo events, with the choreographer Debbie Rakusin, booked Thatch Music to produce and perform the music for eight amazing dancers who stepped their way through the classic form of 40’s swing and Latin salsas to modern contemporary styles.  We were once again reminded of the unique requirements of a musician when performing with dancers.

WORKING WITH DANCERS: OUR SIX RULES OF ENGAGEMENT...

First off... working with dancers can be awesome - just stick with these guidelines!

1. Patience and tolerance.  Dancers have different background and training as musicians and the same can be said to dancers of musicians.  Neither performer can tell each other exactly what they want in the language that the other understands.  In addition to this, it is the musician’s job is to service the dancers and not the audience.  When dancers are added to a performance, they become the priority in the performance and the musicians become the accompaniment.  As soon as the musicians can accept this, the first hurdle has been passed.
2. Musical consistency.  Whatever you have on your chart has to correlate exactly to what the dancers are hearing on the rehearsal track.  The music needs to be arranged to be as identical to the original track as possible.  Whilst a variation in the musical arrangement is often more enjoyable and challenging for the musicians, the dancers have timed steps according to specific accents, crescendos and breaks.  If these are different, the dancers are not able to dance confidently and could lose track of where they are in the arrangement.
3. Solid timing.  The tempo has to be identical to the rehearsal track.  Whilst, for musicians, tempos mean the simple difference in groove, to a dancer it could mean a slip or fall.  Dancers require consistent tempo, so when in doubt, use a click track.
4. Thorough knowledge of charts.  When working with dancers you need to know the music back to front.  Most dancers haven’t learnt musical standards and hence the ability to refer to bars or particular sections of music, and as many dancers as there are, there will be as many ways of referring to a section of music.  You need to be ready for them to sing you a horn part, mouth a percussion break or simply say – “Let’s take it from the middle… 5,6,7,8!”
5. Grooves.  Dancers work in 8’s, not 4’s.  Period.  Learn to think and converse in this mode.
6. Singer’s Phrasing.  A singer’s phrasing needs to follow that of the original rehearsal track without falter.  Every musician desires to take ownership of a song at every performance and often do this through interpreting the phrasing ever so slightly.  However, if the phrasing occurs before the beat, the music will sound slightly faster and the dancers will feel that they are rushed and try to step quicker.  The converse is also true of phrasing behind the beat - it will slow the groove down, regardless of tempo, and the dancers will, again, try to compensate.

That, in a nutshell is our advice from our extensive experience in performing with some of the top dancers and choreographers in South Africa.

We also mentioned, last week, that we had been booked by Frontline Productions to produce two arrangements that weren’t in our normal sphere of orchestrations, but professionalism in our industry is shown through our adaptability and flexibility.  It also led to a further project last weekend with Sandy Dyer and David Matamela.

Frontline needed to produce a tap track for a tap dance show that they are working on.  Our studios were the perfect place as we have parquet flooring.  This was ideal to capture the sharp accents of tap dancing and enabled us to use regular studio microphones as the defined EQ range of taps allowed us to EQ out the guide track and give Sandy the freedom to dance without headphones on his head.

In a wrap, that’s us!  Our busy week looks like this...

• Wed, 23rd Nov - Corporate Function (Bankmed Function) - Timothy Moloi Performance, with 4-piece band (Keys, Synth Bass, Trumpet & Percussion) - Melrose Arch
• Thurs, 24th Nov - Corporate function (ILAB Year End Party) - Voice (Zarcia Zacheus) and Keys (Dave Cousins)
• Thurs, 24th Nov - Jazz Duo Performance - Montecasino (MTN Stage-Maestro)
• Sun, 27th Nov - Jazz Duo Performance - Montecasino (Outdoor Piazza-Mugg&Bean)a