images. words. cause it IS a blog.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Performance, photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as answer, carlsen, Dan Dunlap, drew, finger nails, God, Held, life today, Olivia Carlsen, Peace, piece, sariel, seams, summer storm, time noon
These *images are from the piece I recently choreographed, Sariel.
Strong.
Together.
Held.
Surrounded.
Weak.
Broken.
Sustained.
Carried.
Lost.
Resilient.
Humbled.
Bereft.
Grasping.
No longer empty handed.
Found.
How can a person be all of those things? How can we burst at the seams with how we feel and still eat sandwiches because, by the time noon rolls around, lunch feels important again?
How can the mingling of the mundane and the surreal collide with me every day, creating a kind of thunder, so to speak, that can eventually feel as normal as the sound of a summer storm in July?
And how many Sundays in a row will I have to tell someone that, no, the reason I am no longer with Drew is not because I was away on tour? So far the answer is two, but hey, there’s always next Sunday, I guess.
So many questions, but I don’t think that peace is necessarily in the answers. Though I wouldn’t mind knowing them, so don’t be shy if you know and if the answer is what most would deem nice.
I think there is peace in living fully in the present; getting home and finding your finger nails good and dirty because you dug so deep into the stuff of life today. I think there is peace in realizing that, sure, five minutes fromt now might find you somewhere else–somewhere shocking, even–but right now, this is where God has put you and you might as well live like it’s good.
Because, you know, it just might be good after all.
*pictures taken by Dan Dunlap; dancers: Olivia Carlsen, Avery McGee
sariel.
in Loved Ones, Performance, video
as Angel, brother, brother jason, Christine, Delaware, Don, Jase, Jason, kind, Latshaw, pain, pin prick, sariel, small pin, something, Sunshine
So, the day the awful truth that just about changed everything came out, my brother Jason’s response was to immediately buy a plane ticket and fly from CA to be here with me.
He showed up the next day.
He had something close to a mullet, but it was actually kind of a nice distraction from everything anyway.
That Wednesday night we talked. And talked and talked. We saw that great changing of the guards in the sky; the sun took over and we were still talking.
And sometimes I couldn’t talk. Because I was sobbing so hard. And there was nothing to do but breathe and wonder if anything would ever be good again. And it was in those moments that Jase would grab my hand and squeeze the center of it between his thumb and middle finger. He would squeeze so hard that it hurt, but I knew what he was doing.
And it hurt so much that it helped.
Because it was a good kind of pain for a change. It was the kind of small and focused pain to remind me that, despite how it felt, I wasn’t alone. And if I forgot that again, I only had to look for the source of this small pin-prick of hurt and see my brother right there with me.
He was truly my angel.
And yes, I have had a few angels over these past months. Many of them with the last name Latshaw, and a few of them not.
But when Sunshine, my sister-in-law, asked me to choreograph something new for her company to perform at the Delaware Dance Festival, I was suddenly inspired. I had been listening to Halo recently and had thought of Jase. I knew that the piece needed to be about pain and hurt and help and love; I also knew that it needed to be something about an angel.
So I found the name, Sariel, which means Angel of Guidance and it was like I recognized it, the whole meant-to-be factor was so strong.
The Delaware Dance Company performed it tonight and they did a great job. I actually got a little emotional while watching it, just ask my friend Christine.
Anyway, here is a little video of it. I hesitate to put it up here because when art is reduced to being put in a tiny box it’s never so good as it is when it’s live. But see, I really want my brother Jase to see it.
In fact, he never even knew about it cause it was kind of a surprise.
So, here’s Sariel. And it’s dedicated to Jase and how he squeezed my hand to life that night.
Oh, and the girl at the beginning has an ipod and headphones. She’s trying to escape into her own world. Then the angel person removes the headphones, shows her the music is still playing after all, and the world isn’t all bad either.
So, here’s another version. It’s closer cause it’s the tech rehearsal and I could get all up in there with my camera. Don’t feel pressure to watch both, but I couldn’t decide which to post, so here they both are, I guess.
