AJ Dance Legacy

The Karizma Effect

When darkness is fully realized and the moon is only left to guide you.  The humidity registering at 65% sticks to your shirt.  Ewww.  A truck is parked the wrong way on a one-way alley street.  The driver, a woman is passed out at the steering wheel.  Across the street is a lanky man perched  on the sidewalk.  Sleeping.  His face covered with a black hoodie skull.  This is just another Friday night in these streets of Atlanta. 

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Thommy “Turn It Out” Davis

1600

His shirtless majesty showcasing chiseled pectorals is in beast mode. Playing heavy four-count thumps that erupts from giant black cabinets. And dancing in front of those speakers will cause hearing loss for days to come. “You’ve waited all week to dance,” proclaims a diva loudly rapping over a beat that slaps. Standing on the pavilion’s ledge is one man who leans into the ear of another and speaks, “More like [we waited] a year.”

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All Hail, the King.

1650

Interlude

The music comes to a silence. There is an interlude of talking into a microphone from the founder of Indigenous House and the master of ceremonies. Yasss chyle! Most people are aware that Indigenous House is LGBTQIA affiliated, sadly most people are unaware the event is not called house music in the park.  More words are spoken about acceptance and monetary donations. But more entertaining is reading the statement tees over here and over there, the best reads: “The dance floor is my happy place.”

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Carl Craig

The Realest Muthafucka Alive

0030

“Tonight, there are no chairs.

No tables.

This is not that night.

Tonight, is for the dancers.

Hmmm. What’s the music [called]?”

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Ameer Brooks & Themba 

22:00-23:30

Twenty dollars to park? Suck it up. The lot is spacious. Monitored. And clean.   As the outdoor temperature plunges, security pats down the body, checking for the prohibited. Flash your ID, and a scintillating smile. Enter the long corridor, the black-velvet rope queue, is empty of souls waiting to pay the door fee. Two blondes, mid-conversation, scanning your electronic ticket, point you upstairs where a man, dressed in all black, stands. His hand waves you left. Gaze at a minibar bedecked by urban lounge décor. To its left, behold 16,000 square feet of rich porous and fibrous elegance-wood floor tiles, wood columns holding up level two vicinal wood walls, the elongated wood bar, the wood concert stage elevating the wood DJ station all highlighted with green palm trees-that appears to stretch into forever. As your feet traverse down wooden stairs. Already you feel like a VIP.

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