CAST MEMBER: Denise Wilborn
Step. Step. Turn. Lift. Recover.
Repeat.
Step. Step. Turn. Lift. Recover.
Repeat.
Step. Turn. Recover. Step. Lift.
Repeat.
For Martha Graham the solar plexus was the center of dance, of movement. She challenged her dancers to reach and stretch from the solar plexus and take that risk of falling and learning how to recover, only to do the same once again. Being on the edge, reaching to the next place, and recovering only to begin the process anew are so much an aspect of engaging, challenging dance. Dance that engages the heart and challenges the mind. These are also key characteristics of life.
The past few weeks as I’ve worked with Houston area dancers of all ages and abilities, the challenges to reach, lift, and recover are ever present. I have not danced for decades! I am not as sure of my balance, my strength, my flexibility as I once was. And, yet, I am relishing the physical, mental, and emotional challenge of this process. I am relearning the physical act of lifting and recovering.
My heart is also in the process. As we are challenged to reflect on the ever elusive ideal of love, my emotions are following the same pattern of risk, lift, recover. Some of the falls are old, never fully explored before putting them away. Those old falls still inform my new risks, my newer loves.
Each step in this amazing process is a bit surer than the one before. I gain a bit more strength and balance as I practice and repeat the physical reflections of the written words on my pages. Each repetition of the movements scaffolds the peeling of my emotions, allowing me the existential faith to lift and stretch to the next place.
I don’t think the tasks, the steps, are that important. Rather it is the lifting of the solar plexus or the heart, knowing I open myself to the possibility of falling. In dance and in everyday life, it happens. How do I recover as I keep dancing, keep loving, keep living?
Denise Livings Wilborn
Get your tickets at framedance.org/boxoffice.
Lydia Hance is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. Frame Dance Productions’ Framing Bodies is funded in part by the Puffin Foundation. Frame Dance Productions is a recipient of a Rice University Dance Program Space Grant.
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