Logs:Call and Response

Call and Response
Dramatis Personae Amo Lyric
In Absentia	2024-08-16 A dance interlude.
Location <SLC> Byron Park - Salem Center
Like a lot of this town, this park is a bit precious, overly dedicated to its old-fashioned aesthetic. Its garden is very manicured, its cobblestones paths not particularly disability friendly. The terraced fountain at the center is both lovely and charming and the colonnaded patio beside it is, currently, alive with a thrumming beat that does not suit the very European-Colonial vibes of this whole town. The sound comes from a trio of goblet drums being played wild and passionate by a young Black woman dressed in flowing white clothes and vivid colourful headscarf to match her elegant nails and bold strappy orange sandals. She's sitting on the edge of the fountain, half lost in the rhythm as her hands dance between the skins. Amo herself is passing through, bag slung over her shoulder, checking something on her phone. She looks like she perhaps might’ve just gone running or done a workout, hair tied up in a ponytail, with a loose fitting white tank top and athletic shorts. Her head starts bobbing subconsciously, long before she sees the drummer, but once she does her bobbing becomes much more deliberate, a sort of side to side motion added in that brings the rest of her body along with it’s subtle motion. Her bouncing walk draws her closer to the sound, like a comet caught in orbit, and she slows to a stop near the fountain where Lyric plays. She stands a slight angle to Lyric, where her bopping has yet to stop, watching the way Lyric’s hands hammer out the beat. The heel of her sneaker taps along, bending at the knee, as she familiarizes herself with the ebbs and flows of Lyric’s rhythm. Lyric's eyes have been half-closed as she plays, her body swaying in time with her beat. She looks up as Amo approaches, catching the other woman out of the corner of her eye. A quick smile curves her lips, bright and inviting. There's something inviting, too, about the shift in her drumming, a little sultry, a little bouncy. Her chin jerks up in greeting, and she's bobbing in counterpoint to Amo, now. Amo catches her smile, the invitation in Lyric’s shift, and her eyebrows raise a little. She returns the nod in greeting, and soon her movements expand down past her head and rise up from her leg, through her entire body, and they slot satisfyingly into the beat Lyric communicates. She lets out an excited breath in anticipation, tosses her bag aside, and does a sort of slow, half cartwheel into the imaginary half circle barrier around Lyric she’d been maintaining. She crouches low on the landing, sweeping her leg until she’s back on her hands. Her back arcs, and she hangs in that handstand position for a prolonged moment, watching Lyric from that position to anticipate, before her legs kick back into standing in time with the beat. Her head sways side to side as she spins and steps in tempo. Lyric's eyes go wider as Amo starts to move. Her head cocks to one side, eyes tracking Amo's complementary motions with a keener interest. Where before there was a generically friendly welcome in her smile, now there's a wicked hook to it, at once playful and challenging. She's leaning into her instruments, shoulders shimmying along with the eloquent pulse. She's mixing it up, just a little syncopation here, a little flutter there, the tip of her tongue touching to the top of her teeth as her eyes fix on Amo like she's daring her to answer. There’s no smile on Amo’s face but there’s a clear spark in her eyes when she looks at Lyric, a palpable excitement that bleeds and electrifies her movements, egged on to meet her challenge. She answers, matching the energy, the rise and flow, hammering in steps to Lyric’s spoken and unspoken off beats. She throws herself in a crouched spin and brings her knee up close to her chest to flip over, and lands harshly on her other knee on the uneven stone to flow into the next move, unphased. She offers a few challenges of her own to Lyric in her maneuvers, creating teasing moments of anticipation, slowing a motion to a near stop, before slamming down to pick up the speed again. She does a high arcing kick, spins, and throws another kick in there to build in momentum, until she launches into the air, landing and continuing that circular action, planting her hand against the ground and spinning, palm making a scraping sound against the cobblestone. When she pops back upright, stray hairs have fallen out of her ponytail, and she’s slowing slightly, but she lets out a whoop of excitement, one that seems to bubble out unbidden but not unwelcome. When she looks at Lyric next, it’s filled with a clear admiration. For a time the music and the dance are just call and answer, just rising and falling. Lyric might be sitting but her warm brown skin is gleaming with sweat from the energy of her drumming, from the fervor of keeping up with Amo's pounding percussion. As Amo whoops her hands are finishing strong, pounding out a quick answer on her skins -- one-two-three -- and then four, with a splash that skips her last beat against the surface of the fountain, hand cupped to sound a last note against the surface of the water. It sends an arc of water up toward Amo, cool in the hot summer day; Lyric's drums are silent now, her shoulders shaking with laughter as she flicks the water from her fingertips. Amo spreads her arms out as the water sprays over her, and she’s laughing now too, leaning over on her knees exhausted, a glean of sweat across her skin as well. A smile has broken across her face, delayed, as if it’s been hiding there the entire time, bright and huge. She shakes her head and claps for Lyric’s performance, another slightly quieter whoo escaping her between laughs and deep breaths. She catches her gaze and nods her head in thanks, before bending down at the hip to swing her bag off the ground and over her shoulder. Her smile lingers, even as she waves goodbye and makes her way back into the flow of the crowds, echoes of a drum thrumming in her step.