the power of dance upon the stage

 

virtuosity in motion

in high school I took ballroom dancing classes

I danced in a musical, 

where my dancing was far better than my singing,

I was asked to mouth words in songs,

my body more agile than my voice,

early in my middle school teaching years

I helped co-teach Israeli folk-dance,

a lot of circles and camaraderie,

when my son married into Judaism,

I taught Ma Navu at the party after the wedding,

this goy from East Tennessee knowing an Israeli dance

no other attendees did,

though the bride's father said he had seen it on a kibbutz,

I even had to vocalize the music

since the band did not have this music in their repertoire,

at CFS I have loved to appreciate brilliance

that I only vaguely understand,

yet skills I have touched enough to appreciate their story

for I know enough of that world

to marvel at what others create

with the right honed skills and prodigious effort,

the result of which appears natural,

like the grace of a waterfall or a flower's blossom,

tonight the middle school dance before me 

was of virtuosity: dancer, dancers, 

one, two, and more, one after the other,

moved body and soul across the stage,

by one's self, or with the other,

fixed shape and transforming movement,

visually the body tells a story,

even with gravity limiting how long and how far

body can rise before it comes home to grounding,

the audience particularly cheer when gravity is most held at bay,

the purpose of school, at its most real,

is to allow, even to facilitate

the student to tell their story,

the way their understanding of the universe

and their experience within it,

forces coherence out of chaos,

their positing of a "take" that they want to say,

tonight they want to say it in movement,

this evening I was undone by the power

that dance released upon the stage,

like others in the audience,

I cheered the virtuosity before me,

and I cheer each young person who tonight touched the power

that each of their lives can release

with the right opportunity, the right effort,

the right creation,

to honor the questing soul within.

by Henry H. Walker

May 16, ‘24