- Coming up on ""Curate"".

- [Victor] Playing music is like trying to count to infinity.

It doesn't matter how far you count, you don't get any closer to the end, but you do get further from the beginning.

- [Pam] Once I was able to visit the Barrier islands, I was just very taken with the light.

- [Dennis] Elbert's dance is his very being and life, and his life is a perpetual ceaseless giving dance.

- Welcome to a brand new season of ""Curate"."

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

We're excited to be back and bringing you some of the most captivating stories from the Hampton Roads art scene.

- We start with a five time Grammy Award-winning musician from Newport News, who people call the Michael Jordan of the bass guitar.

- Victor Wooten has traveled the world with several bands, including Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and as a solo artist.

- Despite a rare neurological condition, which is threatening his ability to grace the stage, Victor Wooten isn't slowing down a bit.

(bright music) - Coming home is always more special, especially when you've been away for a while.

I get to be a hometown hero, and that's not what I'm in it for, but I'm gonna use it for everything I got because I want you to succeed, I want you to know that you're worthy, you're enough, you can achieve your dreams.

and I'm proof.

(audience applauding) I'm from Newport News and I'm the youngest of five brothers.

Music has played a big part in my life, probably before I was born, 'cause my brothers were already playing and they needed a bass player.

My earliest memory of playing was right around two years old.

Because I was literally learning to speak music at the same time as I was learning to speak English, music became very natural.

I was on stage by kindergarten, if not before.

We were opening for War and Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations, we didn't know any better, it's just what it was.

And my older brothers who are superheroes to me, they're treating me like an equal.

I'm the baby brother, but no one's beating me up.

Instead, they're holding me up, giving me all the credit.

We did a lot of gigs and we caught the attention of a lot of different people.

A guy named Kashif, brought us brothers in to Arista Records, big record company.

The record deal didn't go so well and it was the cause of the five of us brothers not playing together.

And all we know is music.

So we find out about Busch Gardens and my life has never been the same.

(audience applauding) - [Announcer] Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Canadian Palladium.

At this time you please put your hands together and welcome Busch Garden's own Good Time Country.

- They announce, Busch Garden welcome to the Good Time Country Show and then four black guys walk out, cowboy hats, and it's like, that quiet.

But when the music started, oh my goodness, it was great.

(bright music) At the time, I was too young to work in the live entertainment department, but they were about to open in a couple of weeks or so, and they needed a bluegrass fiddle player.

And then one of my brothers says, well, I got another brother who could probably play fiddle.

I never played fiddle in my life, so I researched and found three of the top fiddle songs and I went in and I won the audition.

For us, music is music, a string is a string.

We could make a sound outta it.

We had a lot of people tell us back then, man, y'all need to move to Nashville.

And at the time I'm like, man, I ain't going to Nashville.

(bright music) Never say never.

So all of us moved to Nashville.

- Thank you.

(audience applauding) - In '87, my friend introduced me to Bela Fleck and we just hit it off.

(bright music) Bela asked me to be a part of a television show called "The Lonesome Pine Specials."

(bright music) They were gonna give Bela a full hour-long special to play his music.

He said, I just need a drummer.

And I said, oh, well, you gotta check out my brother.

(bright music) Bela told me I met this guy named Howard Levy.

Whoa, I don't know if I've ever met a musician like this guy.

He can play anything.

(bright music) It was definitely Bela Fleck and the Flecktones that put me on the global map.

And I thank Bela for that because Bela understood that the band would be better if he allowed every musician to have freedom.

"Bass Player" magazine was just hitting the scene.

So I wound up in "Bass Player" magazine a lot.

We did "The Tonight Show" five times.

- Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

(bright music) - Arsenio Hall is a big bass fanatic.

So we get on "Arsenio Hall," we do this song called "Sinister Minister," which is a bass feature.

(upbeat music) (audience cheers) Spinning the bass around my neck, Arsenio Hall was going crazy.

(audience cheers) And so things worked out for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

(audience cheers) - Bela Fleck.

- Two and two, and then these two would make a four bar.

- Exactly, exactly.

- Right.

- [Daniel] So then it would be out here.

(Daniel and Victor imitate music notes) - Yeah, I think so.

- That's nice and then you have that, backside, it's a little longer with the four bars.

- Mm-hmm.

It's whatever helps solidify that rhythm, right?

I'm improvising, I'm rarely reading, but if I put my head here, I start playing this rather than playing this.

- [Daniel] It's so flavorful, that whole section.

It's really neat.

- Thank you very much.

(bright music) I have a lot of respect for a symphony.

As a child, I played in orchestras, but in being asked to write a piece, I have an idea that they want classical, but they want something different.

The main thing that I wanted to do was not leave me as I was writing.

The instrumentation is going to make it different enough.

To hear people playing something that I wrote, wow, amazing.

(bright music) - [Victor] Right now, it's my first time sitting out and listening to them.

- Oh, yeah?

- Yeah, I can't listen 'cause I'm- - Yeah, yeah.

- I've got a packed case of focal dystonia.

I hate to even say it, but my hands curl up trying to play.

So it's a huge struggle for me to play simple things.

I didn't write anything hard for me in this piece just because of that, but it's gotten a little worse.

So I'm gonna be scratching and clawing at this whole thing.

You all make me sound good.

- Oh yeah.

(Victor laughs) - Thank you.

- Awesome.

(bright music) - Over 20 years ago, I just noticed that my hands were slowing down.

Didn't know why.

I just felt, I need to practice.

So I start working on stuff, running scales, all the stuff people say, warming up and all this stuff that I never did.

(bright music) It's not getting better, it's kind of getting worse.

Now it is so difficult for me to play.

For one, it's kind of taken over my brain, and having to do all the things I tell students, how to relax, breathe.

Don't think about that, think about this.

- Mmm.

- There's that saying I heard, we teach what we most need to learn.

So all that stuff I say I'm working on it.

(bright music) Right now, I'm playing this concerto that I wrote that I can barely play.

(bright music) Fortunately, I have a symphony around me that I can hide behind.

(soft music) (soft music continues) (ethereal music) (ethereal music continues) (ethereal music continues) I wrote a book called "The Music Lesson."

At the beginning of each chapter of the book is a measure of music.

So if you read all the chapters, put the music together, you get a song called "The Lesson."

And then when I thought about writing a concerto, I wanted to really flesh it out with real instruments.

(ethereal music) If anyone knows that song, you'll hear bits and pieces broken up and spread out between movements, as well as spread out between the instruments.

I wanted a bass that I could bow and nobody made one.

So I asked Vinny Fodera if Heath could get a bow base made and he said, I think I can.

And the easiest way to think of it is a cello on its side.

It's fun for me to get to play it because it's a one of a kind.

(ethereal music) I think of a concerto as a musician out front, virtuoso playing a lot of stuff, and the orchestra's back behind, and I like that idea, but I didn't really want to do just that.

I want the audience to see what a bass does, but also see what a bass can do.

So there are times in the symphony where I'm supporting the oboe, supporting the violins, and doing what the bass does with the bass section.

But then I'll step out front and let you see that the bass can play chords, the bass can play melodies, the bass can solo.

So that is an education for all of us.

(ethereal music) As I heard a friend of mine say, playing music is like trying to count to infinity, it doesn't matter how far you count, you don't get any closer to the end, but you do get further from the beginning.

(bright music) So yeah, I've come a long way with music and I'm satisfied.

It doesn't mean I feel like I'm done.

There's still things I want to do.

My focus has changed to what I can help others do.

If I can inspire you to do anything is to be the best version of you possible.

(upbeat music) If you continue to pursue your dreams and just don't quit, you will live them.

It may take longer than you took, it may be harder than you think, but if it was easy, it wouldn't mean as much.

(upbeat music) Music is about sharing it and giving it to other people living our dream with us, (audience applauding) and that's a beautiful, a beautiful life.

(audience applauding) - The eastern shore of Virginia is known to most for its fresh seafood, small town living and diverse ecosystem.

However, for Pam Ponce, it's the magical light on the Barrier islands that inspires her latest photography exhibition.

(birds chirping) (bright music) - Part of my work has always been to educate people.

I talk a little about sense of place in my artist statement, the fact that when you are within a place many times and begin to understand it, not only in its physical beauty, but in its importance to us as human beings, as part of a community here on earth, that you look at these and start to realize how important it is to preserve these areas.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) This is like the fourth environmental show that I've put on.

In the past, I've kind of focused on how we've gone wrong and what's being done to correct it.

This was a more personal impression, a more personal experience, but I do think it educates people about what is out there.

I was aware that the Barrier islands were out there.

I do make frequent trips to Baltimore and Philadelphia, up the eastern shore because it's such a beautiful drive compared to trying to go through Washington DC.

So I was familiar with the area, had visited Fisherman's Island on nature hikes.

I visited Chincoteague, but that was about my understanding before I started this project.

Once I had decided on light and movement as my subjects, I spent about a year researching and thinking that I would be highlighting one of the environmental concerns there, that's how my past work has gone.

But once I was able to visit the Barrier islands , I was just very taken with the light.

It was just all pervasive, light reflected from the sand, from the water, from the sky, and varied very much each time you went out.

The light could change from moment to moment.

I have one photo called light, that is one of my favorites.

I was standing there and the clouds were perfectly mirrored in the water, so they almost seemed to merge.

It was very spiritual, ethereal experience.

When I decided that light would be one of the themes for the show, I thought I'd really like to take hourly pictures of how the light changed during the summer and winter solstice, and the spring and autumn equinox.

And I made sure I stood in the same location, tried to get the very same scene for each of these shots.

I then put them in Photoshop, it was a rather laborious process, and decided which little strip to take out of the full frame photo and then compiled them hour by hour into these timeline.

I enjoyed it.

I don't think many of us ever take the time to sit still very long at all, much less through the whole daytime.

(bright music) The other theme, movement.

One of the first things I noticed was varying patterns from currents and wind all over the sand.

These Barrier islands are unique in that they are constantly moving.

They're moving westward from what we call overwash drift.

They're moving southward from longshore current.

New inlets are formed during storms.

I thought, well, how am I going to show that in photography?

This is a pretty flat landscape.

The only way I was gonna do that is to get photos from a higher elevation and the only way I was gonna do that was to get a drone pilot's license.

So I took a very intense online course, had to go take a test, and managed to pass that.

So I was able to do, like, a photo of a overwash fan or photo of a spit formation, things that are causing these islands to constantly change in shape.

And I even started to see it in some of the life I saw on the shells with their spiral.

The grasses, the spartina patterns up in the upper marshes, kinda lies down in these, kinda like waving patterns.

And then of course the movement of birds because it is on the Atlantic Flyway, you get many different birds.

(bright music) I think many of the issues that are on the Barrier islands are issues here in Tidewater.

I know some of the organizations in this area, like Glen Haven River Now, Elizabeth River Project, marsh restoration, is part of their good work.

(upbeat music) I think everybody has to find a place that is special to them, that they have this sense of place.

And often it might be our own home or a nature park, and we can be active in preserving those, but we can also be active in preserving our own lands where we live.

I just hope that people who look at these photos will appreciate the different beauty of getting out on these remote areas.

It may be not as remote as the Barrier islands , but we certainly have many beautiful natural areas here in Tidewater.

And I would hope that that would encourage them to look at our area with fresh eyes because they will be seeing marshes and beaches, and they'll see the different lights.

Hopefully, they'll gain an appreciation of that.

(upbeat music) - For another fascinating look at life on the eastern shore, watch WHRO's newest documentary, "Against The Current."

(graphics swoosh) - Fans of "Curate" are familiar with acclaimed dancer and educator, Elbert Watson from season seven.

In this follow-up segment, Watson is awarded the Virginia Arts Festival's coveted Ovation Award for his extraordinary impact on this region and beyond over the past 50 years.

(graphics swoosh) - This is our fourth Ovation Award, and the goal of this is to honor someone who has deep roots in Hampton Roads, but also had a major national or international career.

- When Rob called me to tell me about it, I didn't think he was joking, but I said, are you sure I'm the person?

(audience applauding) But I think when they started to talk about me was when I really got it.

And I told myself, Watson, you can't cry, you have to maintain, you have to maintain this dignity.

- Dancer and dance are one in Elbert Watson, united and indivisible.

Elbert's dance is his very being and life and his life is a perpetual ceaseless giving dance.

This world class internationally acclaimed artist and dancer has constantly, selflessly done the unimaginable.

He's extended his hand to us, liberally, freely and insisted that we dance with him.

- The principles of life that you live by are so evident in the work you do and the love and compassion in which you do that work.

You are first and foremost an artist, but you are also a mentor, a teacher, a creative, a choreographer, a coach, a friend, and to me you are an inspiration.

- Elbert Joined the Norfolk Academy faculty and is in his fifth decade of service at the school and he's our Nureyev, Baryshnikov and Fred Astaire rolled into one.

And it's not fair because he looks, acts, performs, teaches mentors, and inspires like a man half his age.

How do you do this, Elbert?

(audience laughing) - My daily routine is I get up at four in the morning, I read my Bible, I do a ballet class, I do a thousand crunches and 200 pushups.

(upbeat music) (people chattering) And mostly, you know, your class is more than just dance.

It's like a metaphor for life kind of thing 'cause teaching life lessons too.

Last week a woman came by, she said, remember when my daughter used to slump?

I said, yeah.

She said, you brought in in the dance studio and told her, you know, pretend there's a diamond on your chest, whatever.

She said, she went to a job interview last week and said, you know what?

I'm gonna have my diamond on my chest.

(upbeat music) - Wouldn't you agree that dancing with Elbert has made us all better?

That his artistry, example, humanity and life are a miraculous gift to all of us.

So blessed to know him.

Congratulations to you, Elbert, on this most fitting honor bestowed upon you today.

There is no Worthier recipient of the Virginia Arts Festival's Ovation Award than are you our dear friend and dancer, Elbert Watson.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) - [Jason] To see previous segments go to whro.org/curate.

- Something new we're doing this season is closing out every episode with a music video from an artist from our region.

And this week we're ending the show the same way we started it.

- Victor Wooten and his brothers are back, currently touring the country in support of their new project.

This is their amazing video for their single, "Sweat."

- We'll see you next week on "Curate".

(upbeat music) ♪ Let me see you sweat ♪ ♪ Where we running y'all?

♪ ♪ We running to the sun ♪ ♪ Mornin' run ♪ ♪ Get up ♪ ♪ Here we go ♪ ♪ It's 6 a.m Monday morning ♪ ♪ No time for sleeping ♪ ♪ No time for yawning ♪ ♪ There's no day off ♪ ♪ And no vacation ♪ ♪ Just hard work, dedication and perspiration ♪ ♪ You know, it's time to sweat ♪ ♪ I need to sweat ♪ ♪ I got to sweat ♪ ♪ 'Cause every time I sweat I'm hot as I can get ♪ ♪ Listen, they say the early bird catches the worm ♪ ♪ Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn ♪ ♪ There's nothing wrong with striving to be the best ♪ ♪ Hardworking, dedication put to the test ♪ ♪ Every single night I got to sweat ♪ ♪ I need to sweat ♪ ♪ I got to sweat ♪ ♪ 'Cause every time I sweat I'm hot as I can get ♪ ♪ I got to work in the mornin' ♪ ♪ I want to dance ♪ ♪ I have to jam ♪ ♪ Every single night I got to sweat ♪