Joanie and Anne are subscribers to the Dance Saint Louis series. At the end of the season, they each get a free ticket. Last night, Anne invited me. Using her extra ticket, Joanie invited Elieen, one of her and Anne’s Friday knitting friends. The show was by Memphis’s Collage Dance Collective, but before the show there was dinner at the Olympia. We of course shared saganaki, “Opa!”

Collage Dance Collective performed three dances. The first, Rise, features a voiceover of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his final speech, his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech that he gave the day before his murder in Memphis. The sight of these young people silently dancing to his stirring and prophetic words made for a powerful and moving combination that lifted my soul.

Enemy Behind the Gates is part of a larger work, Their Eyes Were Watching God and is inspired by the life of Janie Crawford, who defied societal expectations in the 1930s South to pursue true love. Its title is derived from an African proverb, “When there are no enemies within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

The last dance, Bluff City Blues is pure Beale Street. Set to the music of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Koko Taylor it was a toe-tapping delight and guaranteed to pitch a wang dang doodle all night long. Afterwards, I was hoping for an encore, but this was ballet, and they do not do that stuff there.