Improvisation

Good times at Penn Station Plaza last night, as the Station North Arts and Entertainment folks had invited several parkour specialists to Baltimore for about a month, and then paired them, in a formal demonstration of their skills, with some local hip-hop artists and a marching band. Even the mayor stopped by, making calls from her shiny black SUV before emerging into the lambent evening and speaking to the hundred or so of us who were assembled in a rough crescent. Cleo, one of only two children in the crowd, ate a bagel, lay in my lap, and wagered that the mayor would be wearing some makeup.

And then the show began. As a track by TT the Artist (whom I taught, many moon ago, at MICA) played in the background, five men dressed in business casual and thin, pliable sneakers began to flow like mercury over the surfaces in the plaza. The base of the massive Borofsky statue served as one prop; a parapet beneath a landscaped garden another. The men leapt; they tucked their shoulders and rolled. Next, a solid wooden bench attracted their attention, and in a tightly choreographed routine they crossed paths, lifted each other into the air, and vaulted - all in a mode that was aimed at a soft, safely organic smoothness.

How many ways to reimagine a dull, inert object! The bench sits in the plaza, day after day. Perhaps commuters sit on it; set their coffee on it; read the paper on it. A pigeon might alight on it. But now it appeared differently, as a dense collection of possibilities. Could one somersault over it? Straddle it? Use it as a sort of pommel horse? Yes, yes, and yes. A potential obstacle had become part of an urban playground.

But perhaps that's hardly surprising. Most musical instruments, I assume, arose out of a similar sort of exploitative experimentation. What happens if I pluck this reed, and blow on it? Tie this thread to two pegs, and pluck it? Dry and stretch this skin, and strike it?

And, soon enough, we witnessed an answer, of sorts, to this last question, as well A shrill whistle turned heads, and the marching band lurched into action. The percussion was immediately gripping: the sharp tat of the snares, and the emphatic, conclusive punctuation of the bass drums united the square. Smiles on our faces, some of us gently imitating the majorettes, we fell into a loose parade, and left the station behind us, our vision of the city recharged, our sense of sheer possibility heightened.