Poetry in the Paint

An iconic NBA Finals shot inspires a breathtaking meditation on Black genius

David Gaines and Yolanda Wisher in rehearsals for ‘Be Holding’ at Girard College. (Ryan Collerd)

Poetry in the Paint? I’m not talking about Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray last night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, though I think metaphor works. No, I’m actually being more literal here, and alluding to Be Holding, an astonishing new interdisciplinary work based on Ross Gay’s book-length poem of the same title, and featuring a musical score by Tyshawn Sorey. It’s a site-specific piece staged center court at the historic Girard College Armory in North Philadelphia.

I saw Be Holding in rehearsals last Friday, and again on Wednesday, the premiere of a four-night run. Here’s a piece I wrote for WRTI last month, which gets into some of the establishing details of the work. Like Gay’s poem, it’s inspired at its core by a transcendent moment from another NBA Finals matchup — Game 4 of the 1980 series between the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers. 

If you follow basketball, you probably know The Shot: a behind-the-board reverse layup by a gravity-defying Julius Erving. It’s routinely cited as one of the greatest shots in the history of the NBA, including by the NBA itself. Here’s the clip. If you don’t already know it — yes, the really tall guy on defense is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In his poem, Gay marvels at the “astronauticality” of Dr. J in that moment, compares his airborne silhouette to Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, “(if that little naked man wasn’t little / or naked and was palming a basketball / and was flying / through the trees).” He considers the shot from every conceivable angle, and considers himself considering. Eventually he departs from a forensic analysis of the footage and its moment — broadening his aperture to take in the Middle Passage, black-and-white photographs from the WPA archives and the artist Carrie Mae Weems, his own rich and complex family history, the banter from a live Donny Hathaway album. It’s a performance as defiant and balletic as Dr. J’s, and its subject is Black genius and resilience.

Be Holding, directed by Penn professor Brooke O’Harra, entrusts Gay’s poem — the entirety of the poem — to two more poets, Yolanda Wisher and David Gaines. They recite in turn or in tandem, circling center court as Sorey’s mutable score ripples around them, executed by the virtuoso new music quartet Yarn/Wire. There’s also a coterie of high school students from Girard, joining in the spoken-word or choreographic stir, and implicitly connecting the piece to a living community.

David Gaines during a rehearsal for ‘Be Holding’ at Girard College. (Ryan Collerd)

When I attended the rehearsal last Friday evening, I sat in one set of plastic bleachers next to Seth Colter Walls, who was there to report a NY Times article (“gifted” here) about the students’ resonance in the work. In that piece, Sorey observes that their participation makes Be Holding “even more powerful, when they do the movements and when they get involved in some of the conversational parts of the poem.”

At a rehearsal for ‘Be Holding,’ Girard College, May 26, 2023. (Nate Chinen)

Girard College is a historic boarding school for underserved youth, and it has been a key institution in the history of the civil rights movement in Philadelphia. So that’s one layer. Another is in the architecture: the Armory, which was dedicated just shy of a century ago, is a grand and weathered space fringed by tall wrought-iron windows. Be Holding begins in a twilight gleam that gradually deepens into night over the course of its arc. Like the cavernous reverberations in the space, that shifting light (enhanced by lighting designer Itohan Edoloyi) plays a subtle but powerful role. (Meanwhile, the sound design is deftly handled by a friend, Eugene Lew.)

There’s a lot more to say about Be Holding. Just after the triumphant premiere, I had a chance to congratulate Sorey, just as Gay was walking by. Everyone was all smiles. Here’s where I urge you to go see this piece, if you are able. It runs again tonight and tomorrow. Having sat through it twice, I can assure that you won’t soon forget it.

Ross Gay with Tyshawn Sorey after the premiere of ‘Be Holding,’ May 31, 2023. (Nate Chinen)

One more thing, and it’s pretty amazing. When I walked into the Armory on Wednesday night, I encountered a handful of familiar faces, including Matt Merewitz, who did some publicity work for Be Holding, and whom I hadn’t seen in person since before the pandemic. That’s not the amazing part. The next person I saw was the indefatigable Philly-based arts patron Tony Creamer, with his wife. When I went over to say hello, Tony mentioned that he was in the stands when Dr. J took his shot, that afternoon in 1980. So he came to Be Holding with a rare point of view.

Like Matt, Tony is a Founding Member of The Gig. He’s also someone who takes concertgoing really, really seriously. I’ve run into him every time I go to Big Ears, and at places like Penn Live Arts and Solar Myth. Naturally, I wanted to know what he thought of Be Holding, as someone who witnessed its precipitating act. I called him yesterday afternoon, as he was heading up the interstate to New York City, to catch The Crossing with the New York Philharmonic at Geffen Hall.

If you support The Gig with a paid subscription, read on to hear what Tony thought of Be Holding, and how it squared with his experience of Dr. J’s triumph. I also have three gift subscriptions to Kareem’s Substack, which of course I highly recommend. I’ll pass those gifts along to my first three paid subscribers who asks. And if you saw the piece — or saw Dr. J performing miracles — I want to hear from you!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.