to laugh with the joy of creation

 

Winter Dance Concert ‘20

dancers seem to laugh at gravity,

the precision and grace of their movements

seem to laugh at the clumsiness many of us feel,

and that’s when gravity and conditioning and practice

are the heavy lifts each mover has to surmount,

now the pandemic denies physical closeness,

so that their movements cannot touch

and thus build larger shapes in the visual

and in the social hearts of the dancers,

the audience not packed together in the same room,

feeding off each other’s reactions,

with no technology between audience and the creations.

each choreographer and dancer now

is either outside and socially distant

or inside and within rectangles on the screen,

the lifts to create and express the choreographers’ visions

are so much heavier now, choices limited,

how even more impressive these dancers are

in using the new medium as if translating into a new language,

the drone overhead allowing high early sun to shadow the dancers

and increase new dimensions with their art,

the pandemic attempts to hobble,

and the choreographers and dancers refuse to be limited,

instead they find how to still laugh with the joy of creation.

by Henry H. Walker

December 11, ‘20