Today is the first performance for Beyond Barbie -
Strength in Motion: Dancing our Sacred Bodies. One of the dancers, who calls herself Khalima, wrote a magnificent essay about her relationship with dance, particularly the piece she will be dancing tonight. I quote it here with her permission:
Life,
death, and dance. You may not think these things are so inexplicably
linked, perhaps not so seriously, but I’m going to tell you exactly why
they are. It is too often that people find themselves at the precipice
of death, and are pulled back in by understanding what it means to be
alive in that incredible body of theirs. Movement arts like bellydance,
which may not seem so serious in the grand scheme of things, can have
that huge effect on the heart and body. Bellydance happened to be the
gateway drug for me, and so often works this way for others. I lived
trapped inside of my body, rigid as stone for so many years, until I was
given dance. The tangibility of the body, and the act of channeling
experiences through it brings a level of healing I have never
experienced in another format.
Today is a day that I am
thinking heavily about this connection, yet again. It is what would have
been my younger sister Jenn’s 28th birthday. She passed away,
tragically, in a car accident on July 25th, leaving behind two beautiful
daughters, a host of friends and family, and a maddening anguish in the
knowledge that she would never be able to move beyond that fateful day.
I have been told that the first year is so hard because of
anniversaries, birthdays, holidays…other changes, like the seasons, or
walking past the medical examiner's office on the first day of school
have also threatened to tilt me back into the dark void that encompassed
those first few weeks when the veil between worlds had been removed.
I am thankful though, for answers to the pain that come flying at me like waves of alchemy on a sea of despair.
I
reflect on the performance that I will be giving tonight as part of
Susan Singer's “Beyond Barbie” Thursday night series, a celebration of
women's glories and griefs. I shiver a bit when I think about it, and
how the piece I will be dancing has revisited me in one form or another
during times of loss, whether I knew it or not. I decided to perform to
the unrelenting piece of music, titled “Farewell” a month before Jenn
died, building off of previous versions that I have danced, also at
times of loss that I was unaware of at the time. Little did I know when I
chose this, that the haunting melody of cellos that seem to curl up
from beneath the earth and sinuously wrap themselves inside my body,
reaching into the firmament, would serve again as catharsis for some of
my deepest loss, and in a show designed to give people a taste of what
it means to dance from the heart: how it heals us, carries us through,
and gives meaning to all that we experience and know.
Tonight's
piece is based on the High Priestess card of the Tarot, and what she
represents: innate knowledge and going inside of oneself to find deeper
truths. She sits wide eyed, quietly beckoning to the pomegranate covered
veil behind which lies the deepest, most secret knowledge. Where you
find the High Priestess, you know you will need to be alone to find out
what you know already, and be ready to penetrate the deepest levels of
understanding, to illuminate your world, and be fearless as Persephone
as she penetrates the strangeness of the underworld.
I
understood the deeper significance of the High Priestess in relation to
“Farewell” after I danced it for the first time at the first Raqs
Luminaire, which is an ever evolving dance production based on
illumination of a literal and metaphorical sense, story, and dancing all
that it means to be alive or dead. When I conceived the idea for the
show, I had no idea of the layers of significance the project would have
on my life and others. My wish for the show was taken seriously by
whatever powers exist; to be an outlet for all that you feel deepest in
your soul, to be lain raw and naked to the world, and find out what you
do with it. When I danced “Farewell” for the first time at Luminaire, I
was pregnant with a child that would never know this world outside the
warm shell of its mother. I had unknowingly set up a ritual and dance to
honor that life without knowing it. My body and heart knew what my mind
was unwilling to accept, and it carried me to dancing all that it meant
to be alive and dead at the same time.
“Farewell” came
back to me yet again during the time of a powerful loss in a
relationship last summer. I was magnetically drawn to the sound and feel
of the piece, and had the uncontrollable urge to work it out through
the music, and did so over and over so that it could be presented in a
format that an audience could understand. I couldn't dance to much else
aside from that music. The ache in my body and heart was a tangible
thing. I was vibrating with the energy of it all, and couldn't help but
to move, to channel it through the glowing bloody vessel that is the
home for a spirit trying to make sense of the wildly spiraling structure
that life often takes. In times like these, I feel the energy of what
is in my heart and belly float to the surface. I wrap it up in my hands
and hips and release it out into the sky.
I often tell
people that dance is an imitation of life. It doesn't matter what your
method is. It only matters that you're moving, and I am eternally
grateful to the people who brought that into my life. Today, I am asking
this song to pull me up again. Where layers of despair have worn my
desire to move down to nothing in recent times, I implore of this piece
to lift me up again, to access the parts that remain hidden. I dance
this not only for myself, but to show people that they are not alone.
Today I move for my sister, for the joy of her birth, in honor of the
time that she had on this earth, and for each soul brave enough to peer
inside of themselves and behind the veils that hold us back from the
knowledge necessary to grow into beautiful, glowing tendrils of the
earth.
After the sofa reached a certain level of completion, I began work on her body. The light was beautiful coming in the window to her right (our left), so it was fun to render that. She also has a wonderful laughing expression which was tricky and challenging but fun to capture. I just noticed I forgot to paint her necklace. Guess I'm not finished after all! I also notice that some of the grid still shows through the sofa cushions and the background in some places, so I have a few more hours' work to do. Ah, the pleasures of an artist! 
