Helpful Hints for Strength and Health for Busy People
… is an 18-month project culminating in the creation of 10 intergenerational duets.
Almanac Projects will create, produce, and present two new full-length companion dance works titled Helpful Hints for Strength and Health for Busy People and Busy People. Helpful Hints will be co-created by Rhonda Moore, a 69-year-old Black veteran dancer and novice acrobat and Ben Grinberg, a 35-year-old queer Jewish acrobat and novice dancer. The duet will feature live original music from Philadelphia-based musician Honeychile, who explores identity and aging through the Black music canon. It will be created through an iterative community development process, which will bring excerpts of the work-in-development and an accompanying workshop to elder BIPOC communities throughout Philadelphia.
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Busy People will be a full-length dance work co-created by 10 BIPOC elders, each of whom will work, through a facilitated development process guided by Moore and Grinberg, with a member of the Philadelphia independent performance community to create their own duet about the concepts of strength and health and coming together across differences. Moore and Grinberg will lightly shape and choreograph these 10 duets into an hour-long performance work.
Meet Rhonda and Ben
Rhonda is 69 year old Black woman. Ben is a 35 year old queer Jewish man. How can they even the score? As Ben teaches Rhonda acrobatics, and Rhonda teaches Ben how to dance, they share the triumphs and the failures, painting a playful portrait of a loving relationship.
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Helpful Hints for Strength and Health for Busy People is inspired by the whimsical 1901 book Illustrated Hints for Strength and Health for Busy People by Adrian Peter Schmidt. This project reimagines turn-of-the-century fitness advice through an intergenerational, embodied lens, exploring the evolving definitions of strength, health, and readiness across time and lived experience. In 1901, wealth inequality was skyrocketing, and culture and society were being reconfigured by massive technological advancements, bringing major changes to the way life was lived. Just like today. As "business" became a condition of the majority of (working-class) Americans, the need to stay physically ready was ever present. Today, we find ourselves in similar times, yet the desire for "strength and health" is often, commercially, more about an image of physical attractiveness. Through the co-creative process, this project will build strength and health in the community by bridging differences of background, race, and age.
