Women You Should Know - Lula Washington by Myshell Tabu

Women You Should Know:

Lula Washington

by Myshell Tabu

Tendu | "To Stretch"

Her dance was denied.

Past age of consent

when her muse 

introduced feet to marley

but dreaded direction

from Bruin bosses

told her 22 was too old

to start dancing.

Pisces persistence found flaws

in common sense

so she dreamed against the wind

baby girl on one hip,

husband holding steady,

battered down 

academia's ivory towers of rejection

took first steps into legend.

Nobody could deny

work ethic and talent,

like left foot and right,

moving in syncopation with vision.

She saw Cher back stage,

leapt for "Love and Happiness,"

hoofed it for Hollywood

until her dreams were big enough

to stretch $25 into a theatre,

developing diminutive dancers

to follow her vision, too.

"I do dance, not drugs,"

motto chanted through

cramped rooms near Adams and Redondo.

Since then, 

forty five thousand pairs of feet

danced to her diverse design,

populating companies and programs

all over the world

with traces of her genius.

She got down like that,

spotlighting seeds of special

in nappy haired possibilities.

Took me from taking her class

to teaching my own

before I could drive,

sending me to inspire my own

crop of futures.

Former Soviet republics

passed beneath her callused soles,

she knows Chinese provinces

by their family names

now lauded as celebrated alumna

by university that once closed its doors.

Lula don't give up,

epitome of struggle and sincerity

installing the same

in children and dreamers

one step at a time

Myshell Tabu is a Los Angeles based actress, freelance graphic designer, and home educator to two awesome daughters. She studied film at Chapman University, and holds a degree in Africana Studies with a minor in Theatre Performance from California State University, Dominguez Hills.












Zesty has been running the Women You Should Know series every March since 2012 - to look at previous posts, use the blog archive on the right of this page.