Everything This Way: Warming the Stage, Warming our Bodies, Warming our Lives
This Sanctuary of Sound, ripe with fullness, reverberating tones and gestures gone before, eagerly awaited us to penetrate, if we dared. Like munchkins emerging from underneath our protective flowers, we gingerly crept into the space, slowly moving our bodies from isolation. Everything this way.
With only a ghost light since March of 2020, the Tech Crew seemed elated to see us walk in. Eager to work their muscles, and use this glorious room for her purpose, we all move inch by inch, for everyone needs warming. Even the Hall needs warming in preparation for the Season that will finally open its doors - hopefully with little Covid interruption.
Masked breathing beside me is unnerving, unaccustomed to such closeness from others outside my intimate pod. Strangely familiar, some kernel of truth bade me pull forward, trust my body. Listen. I’m always teaching this myself and here I am having to learn it all over again. Beginners mind. Everything this way.
Hour by hour, day by day, for two “glo”-rious weeks my breath drew deeper into my body, filling my tank, broadening my ribs, reaching my toes so that I can stretch out and leap across this grand floor. Lauri, our dearest white witch, guided us ever closer in trust to self and one another and fanned the spark into a brighter flame for an inclusive ATL with this diverse group of movers. I knew this part of me physically and communally and have been aching through shutdown to stretch my wings until now I can touch my neighbor without fear and press flesh upon flesh in full expressive motion. Everything this way.
It was November 2018 when I last stepped on the Atlanta Symphony Hall Stage to sing with jazz master and my beloved teacher Bobby McFerrin for WCLK’s 44th Anniversary Fall Benefit Concert. How odd for my return to be doing such deep inner emotional and physical work through creative movement. But then we are all stepping into this brave new world as if for the first time. A rebirthing of sorts. Everything this way.
Our Stages need us, and we need our Stages, like we need each other: community and bodies in motion - dancing, singing - sharing the stories of our lives. We are all in and on different “stages” across our city, nation, world and in our hearts and minds.
LIFE is everyone’s Stage. Step into it: Dance it, Sing it, Tell it. What are you waiting for?
Everything this way ~
*in deepest appreciation for Lauri Stallings, gloATL, the Woodruff Arts Center and the opportunity to dive into this rich experience