ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996 TAG: 9606060008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
'There are people who care,' is the message students want to convey in their dance honoring a shell-shocked veteran.
The student dancers call him ``the man with the can.''
Some claim he listens to a jar full of tar and seashells. Others believe it's actually a can full of mashed beans with minced red peppers.
``He's rich,'' one eighth-grader says, her eyes dramatically wide.
``I think he's got a regular life with kids and stuff like that,'' adds another.
Some live nearby and see him regularly at Patterson Avenue and 10th Street where he hangs out.
Others had never given him much thought - until they began analyzing his every move.
Melissa Ramsey, a junior, plays the role of Death in the Fleming-Ruffner dance-company tribute to John Hobson, the man with the can. She's never seen the shell-shocked veteran who sits at busy Roanoke intersections reliving life in a Vietnam swamp: shrapnel lodged in his leg, friends reduced to bloody bits.
But Ramsey can recall her own father's similar bad dreams. ``My dad was in the Vietnam War, too, and he used to have memories like the man is having,'' she says.
``I remember watching him sleep when I was a little girl. And if he was jerking around or having a bad face, you didn't wanna wake him up - he would come up fighting.
``It took him going to the Vietnam Wall to get over it.''
That John Hobson has never gotten over his experience in the Vietnam War is precisely what attracted dance teacher Liza Fritz to his story.
Fritz recalls driving by Hobson en route from school last year. It was his yard that initially caught her eye:
``It reminds me of the sets Martha Graham used to make - abstract, with a wishbone shape, a blown tire hanging from a tree,'' the second-year teacher says. ``It looks like one of those continuous yard sales, but everything's arranged artistically.
``And there he is, sitting there. Listening.''
Fritz thought about the man frequently. She wondered what he was listening to. She read a 1992 newspaper column about him. She made up scenarios in her head.
And then she created her own interpretation of his story. ``I thought about how people cope with the terrible things that happen to them.''
Some people lose their minds. Others, like the man with the can, develop their own coping mechanisms.
Fritz turned her imaginings into choreography. The result, a six-minute dance called ``Patterson Avenue,'' premieres at William Fleming High School Friday night. With the sound track from ``Hamlet'' booming from the speakers - and a distinct ``Apocalypse Now'' feel - it's not your standard high-school performance art.
More importantly, it's made the students think. About war. About differences. About what it's like to step into someone else's skin.
The all-female cast is quick to point out that ``Patterson Avenue'' is not about making fun of John Hobson, or making light of his illness. With dramatic music and a gunshot-peppered prelude, the dance urges people ``to give him more respect,'' says eighth-grader Theresa Sullivan. ``It's about him being a person who could teach me a few things or two.''
Sullivan, who portrays Hobson in the dance, meanders chaotically across the stage - at one time jumping backward from a chair, another time collapsing to clutch her can.
``It's like I'm in another world, defending myself,'' she says of her character. ``Sometimes the gunshots don't faze me; sometimes I react. I try to get others to listen to me, but at first they think, `Ooh, nasty!'
``The dance is not saying he should change, but to power him and make him believe in what he's doing,'' the eighth-grader explains. ``I mean, he's put here on Earth like everybody else. Why should he have to act like us?''
Sophomore Tonya Janney, who wears white to characterize Hope, choreographed her own role in the dance. When she pushes the Hobson character out of his chair, ``It's like pushing a baby bird out of its nest,'' she says.
``I hope it gives people different feelings for him.''
Eighth-grader Jennifer Campbell says the dance has underscored what she's learned in history class about the Vietnam War. In the final moments of the piece, she and the other fatigue-clad dancers embrace the Hobson character, rocking him.
``We're trying to comfort him,'' she says. ``We're trying to understand what happened.''
Fritz and the dancers plan to invite Hobson to the performance.
If he comes, Ramsey says, she hopes he leaves with this message: ``There are people who care.''
* ``Patterson Avenue'' will be the final dance of the Fleming-Ruffner Eclectic Expressions Dance Company recital. The recital begins at 7 p.m. Friday in Dickinson Auditorium at William Fleming High School. Admission is $3. For further information, please call 853-2605.
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL L. NEWBY II Staff 1. Fleming High and Ruffnerby CNBMiddle School dance students (top) rehearse ``Patterson Avenue,''
which they'll perform as the finale for Friday's recital at William
Fleming High School. The dance depicts the inner life of a Vietnam
veteran who spends his days sitting with a jar full of beans to his
ear. 2. Jennifer Campbell (standing, right) creeps up to take the
jar away from Theresa Sullivan (left) and Tonya Janney. 3. Campbell
and Liza Smoker (below, rear) refine their choreography.< 4.
File/1992 Vietnam veteran John Hobson is often seen sitting on the
hillside at Williamson Road and Wells Avenue near an I-581 entrance
ramp. color.