Funk Lessons (1983; 00:15:17)
A videotape piece based on an audience-interactive performance of Funk Lessons at the University of California, Berkeley that goes considerably beyond the performance. Both performance and tape address the ambiguous status of African-American working class music and dance as serious contributors to American art and culture. In the performance I teach my audience how to listen to this music and how to dance to it. There's a lot of audience response in this tape, which is humorous and also moving. Edited and directed by Sam Samore, produced by Tom Oden. For a more recent, international approach to the same material, I highly recommend the stately but endearing Finnish/German/ Russian treatment at http://folk.uio.no/tsandvik/fun/learn_disco.mpg
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