Josh’s Story:
We Dance for People
“Sometimes it’s easy to get your focus stuck on the day to day as a dancer. There’s enough to focus on; technique, sequence, character, physical preparedness, etc. That’s all important, but sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the Why of it all. I remember, a few years ago, a friend of ours asked us to come and perform at Metro Health Hospital. Now, Metro doesn’t have a performance space. So we loaded five rolls of our marley flooring into Dominic’s jeep, drove them to Metro, and laid out a space to dance on in a rotunda right next to the emergency room. And then we danced. We performed a full concert. No lights, no curtain, no wings. Just costumes, music, and barely enough space to dance in. There was no greenroom so we changed behind a curtain in a corner. The audience was sitting on benches six feet away and people were walking by in the hallways that connect to the rotunda – some stopping to watch, others hurrying to get by. It was easy to think of that performance as small, silly, and annoying; something you do because it’s a gig and you want to develop a relationship with a hospital that wants to incorporate art as a part of the patient experience. It was easy to see that performance as “less than”. Less important than a concert in a “real” theatre, less impactful than performing with lights and wings and programs, needing less of our attention, effort, and vulnerability.
But that performance was not “less than”. If anything, it was “more than”. We were next to the emergency room entrance; one of the highest stress areas in the hospital. And that’s where we did our art. And the people who were there were the people we did our art for. We created beauty in a place that needed it more than. I’m proud of us that we didn’t back down from giving at that concert. We performed with everything we had (we always do and by God’s grace always will). Afterward, we talked about how important and impactful performances like that are. They connect directly to our Why. We dance for people. Venue, numbers, recognition, compensation; these are all details. The reason we spend each day working hard on technique, choreography, character, storytelling, on getting stronger and better and clearer, is because of our Why. We dance for people.”
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