Limits Beget Intimacy

Despite another whirlwind storm in New York which caught us all off guard, the Unmoored tour is off and running. We officially kicked off the tour with a full weekend in Brooklyn, graciously hosted by families of Berkeley Carroll High School before returning back to College Park.

Then, within a matter of three days, we were off to rehearse at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, a very intimate black-box theatre in DC's beautiful Capitol Hill. At CHAW we experienced an entirely fresh version of Unmoored - the full show performed in our smallest venue yet, no microphones (the audience being no more than several feet away) - and had to renegotiate most of the dances so that we could perform without colliding head-first into each other. But the physical closeness between us, the audience, and each other - the sense of being in the center of it all, face-to-face with humanity - was fitting for a venue in the nation's capital. At CHAW, we had no choice but to get up close and personal, with ourselves, the audience, the reality of what we were sharing.

We may have originally seen the tiny venue as a limit, an obstacle to our full and expansive performance of Unmoored. But the four walls that contained us only brought us closer to each other. There was little we could hide - every breath was audible, every sideways glance clearly in view. Humanity contained in a limited space can be a beautiful sight - a tiny point overflowing with life. It took more patience, care, and sensitivity to make CHAW work. And 'community' was a word that kept flowing through my mind. We are growing into a strong community of performers by virtue of one shared goal. Together, we negotiate our environment. Our success depends solely on how well we work together.

As we sit in the dark of the stage waiting for one dance to transition to the next, I close my eyes and hear New Orleans testimonies I had not heard before. The work continually expands what I previously thought was a thorough understanding of what it means to have lived through the tragedy and beauty that was Katrina.