This past Wednesday I went with my friend, Anna, to a dance production at Citadel + Compagnie. My current (ack – 13 years and counting!) work in progress features a modern dancer and choreographer, but that wasn’t the only reason I drove two hours into the city.
I met Heidi Strauss in 1992 when she was studying at Toronto Dance Theatre. Trish Beatty sent her to me for bodywork, saying, “I’m sending you another wonderful Taurus.” Trish directed several fully embodied Taurian dancers my way. And I have been ever grateful for these deep connections.
And so…
We were so moved by what we witnessed that it took a long walk in the cool winter night to begin to integrate.
Here is what I wrote the following day about the experience:
She was among us. With us. Her body at ease, she invited us in. Not a performance, but something between us. An offering.
It began so simply—a conversation introducing us to those she loves, their history stored in a shirt or pair of pants. Purple-brown slacks soft to the touch: Here, she said, coming up the riser, feel this, and held them out so we would know. The plaid shirt her father wore to fix a broken thing. Her mother’s white cover-up whose lace didn’t cover. A shirt her father wore, not that he loved softball, but OPTIMISM printed on the front. Her brother’s shirt, now too small even for her son. She laid them out for us to choose, invited us to dress her.
We listened. How could we not? And she listened back.
What she offered began again and again. Layers revealed, not concealed. The chaos and emptiness of loving, of longing, and of leaving. Stillness and frenzy and the holes left in between.
I need a hand, she said, lying prone, possibly defeated, possibly spent. But she laughed, and every body in that audience leaned in, their hearts straining. Does she mean that? Because if she does, I will leap over everyone to reach her, lift her, bring her back. Whatever she needs. She has let me love her.
Mirror mirror.
Finally, it is clear. She means it. All of it.
Her morning-calm eyes. Clothed in what is slipping away, she sheds and dons, rises and falls. We are with her. Because she has let us see her and in seeing her, we are unclothed.
ARTIST NOTES
The questions I had when beginning this solo remain. They emerged from attempting to understand the experience of someone (I love) who is losing their memory. An impossible and continuous task, really. Asking questions that have no answers has become an important practice; walking into the unknown continues to be one of the most valuable ways to feel where I am, to navigate my relationships with people, space and consequence, and to learn (and relearn) trust of different kinds.
Heidi Strauss
To witness someone who is losing their conscious identity is a ‘messy, risky’ endeavor. Memories are a large part of identity, so when someone we love loses their memories we risk them losing us - scary from either side of the equation. To experience their experience requires great courage and fortitude and opens the soul to previously unimaginable horizons, because then we are as much inside another's experience as can we be, and usually understand less, until later.
wonderful writing Deepam- as usual! I want you to be a dance writer along with all your other projects- the community needs you! (i was hoping to see the H.S. performance myself but was away care-giving for my sister in California- I'm sure I would have related to much of the piece!)