Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2006SYR10
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Breeze Passes Through Leaves
poster information
Description
Breeze passes through leaves
As Thornden Park break dancer
Executes "windmill"
My youngest daughter, Katy, is a break dancer. She was my inspiration. She is part of the Uprock Crew—a break dancing group in Syracuse. Typically they would practice in Thornden Park or at the Inner Harbor. It's very creative, and it's fun to watch.
Now she's at the University of Buffalo, and she's dancing with AG-1—Buffalo's first and largest hip-hop group. She's majoring in exercise science, so a lot of what she's studying—about fitness and strength—relates her interest in break dancing. Some of the moves, especially the freezes, take a lot of upper body strength. So she's working at it and getting better and better!
After I selected the poem, I sent an e-mail to my friends, to see if anybody knew any break dancers. One of them put me in touch with these two guys, Solomon Dixon and Gean Cleveland, at LeMoyne College. They teach break dancing at Shopping Town Mall, and practice on the SU campus.
I took them out to Thornden Park, played a mixed tape of Nas and Rakim, and they just broke to it. I took a bunch of shots. Then, the next day, I took some more shots around the park, and scanned in some leaves.
I like piecing together different photographs to create a new piece, since that's kind of how hip-hop culture is, and even how break-dancing is. You take, like, a series of random movements and combine them into a cohesive movement.