The Dance We All Do...
The beautiful metaphor of Bethesda Rep's The Rhythm of Mourning
“Within each of us are many uniquely different people, many selves, each with a voice and story of their own.”
So say Bethesda Repertory Theatre’s Co-Directors Andrew Rudy Galindo and Adam Holguin in a note in the Playbill about The Rhythm of Mourning, their new beautiful play that is headed to the Hollywood Fringe Festival later this month.
The play gives voice to those “many selves” of a mourning dancer, personifying Anxiety, Shame, Hope, Innocence, Denial, Anger, The Void, Bargaining and Depression in different characters, actors who play the roles of the roiling emotions inside her, inside all of us.
Ugh. The first half hour was rough. I shifted and moved around my seat uncomfortably in The Stomping Ground dance studio in L.A. where the performance took place. Truthfully, I wanted to be anywhere but there, doing anything else but dealing with the confusing competing perspectives of human emotions.
But, as the characters on stage kept at it, expressing in intense detail the manifold options of mourning possible for The Woman (played brilliantly by Zoe Papia), I began to relax.
It is up to us to decide, isn’t it? And it isn’t easy, but we have to push through.
I just finished a book recommended to me by Ji Hyang Padma, a Zen spiritual teacher I prevail upon sometimes for a peak into my psyche. The Mountain is You, by Brianna Wiest, offers up many nuggets of wisdom to overcome self sabotage, to transform it, as she says, into “self mastery.”
The reading of it, like the watching of The Rhythm of Mourning, is itself a transformational process. One has no choice but to look inside, no option but to open up to the reality of the wrestling match of the mind that threatens to unglue us at every turn.
I had stopped along the way in my unusually slow reading of the book to write down a simple but devastatingly difficult passage that came to me as I twisted around in my seat:
“The majority of your life is a direct result of your actions, behavior and choices.”
In mourning, as in any stage of life, the choice is ours how we will move forward, how we will proceed. And it isn’t at all easy. The play’s metaphor of the dance, of allowing ourselves to move fluidly and beautifully through the process, allowing ourselves to find our own unique rhythm, is so exquisite as to be painful. Rhythm is always the way, but sometimes, often, it can be hard to move.
I always bring people back from the place my sound bath takes them by suggesting they find the rhythm of their own breath, following the rise and fall of their chests as their breath enters and leaves their bodies. “You can always come back to the rhythm of your own breath…” I say.
It was a beautiful recurring scene in The Rhythm of Mourning for a few of the characters/emotions to sit and find their breath, bringing their hands up near their faces and moving them back and forth like an accordion as they took a moment out to breathe. It was not lost on me that offering that moment’s meditation was a meaningful offering to the audience: in the midst of difficult decision-making, when your mind is going every which way, take a moment to focus on your breath, to find that natural internal rhythm, to let it guide you, to let it help you come to harmony.
I attended the play because the assistant director/lighting designer of the production, Wilson Dizon, is my son’s boyfriend. He was brought in warmly to offer up his many skills to this wonderful fledgling theatre company, co-founded two years ago by Andrew Rudy Galindo and Michael William Gomez, who act as Artistic Director and Managing Director respectively.
Everyone involved was sensational, lending to this intense dramatization of the dance we all do, in various ways, every day. This play, and this company, deserves major attention for this crucially important message. Kudos.
In peace and harmony,
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Steph
ListenUP CALENDAR for June 3 - June 9
Here are some cool events happening around NYC to help you find your rhythm this week…
monday, june 3
Joe Hertenstein Quartet
Jazz Habitat at El Barrio Artspace
7 PM
Joe Hertensten is back in town!! This kickass drummer/singer/songwriter friend of mine is back from Berlin this month. Catch him where you can!! This show, at the beautiful El Barrio Artspace in Harlem, is part of the Jazz Habitat series, and features Mr. Hertenstein’s Quartet: Ray Anderson on trombone, Santiago Leibson on piano, Ken Filiano on bass, and Joe on drums. Go!! Will be beautiful.
tuesday, june 4
The Andy Statman Trio
Barbes
8 PM
Notable klezmer clarinetist and “bluegrass/newgrass” mandolinist Andy Statman draws equally from Hassidic melodies, new and old world folk tunes and free improv, the results being “like a very personal search for the sacred…” Love it.
wednesday, june 5
Remedy
iBeam Brooklyn
7:30 PM
Joe again…this time, catch his always-joyous drumming with ace trumpeter Thomas Heberer and bassist Joe Fonda, with an opening set by pianist Eva Novoa. I’ve somehow never made it to iBeam, a member-owned performance and rehearsal space, but I hear it’s very cool!! Should be an excellent show.
thursday, june 6
Michael Blake’s Chroma Nova
Bar LunAtico
Sets at 9 PM + 11:30 PM
Saxophonist Michael Blake creates a “sinuous blend of Brazilian rhythms and modern jazz” with this band, Chroma Nova. “Not to be missed,” it is said. So go! Blake on tenor and soprano sax + flute alongside Skye Soto Steele on violin, Gili Lopes on bass, Guilherme Monteiro on guitar and Rogerio Boccato on drums + percussion
friday, june 7
Sacred Bloom Sound Bath
YogaSole
6 PM
Catch my sound bath if you haven’t for this First Friday series at the lovely YogaSole yoga studio in Windsor Terrace. Go to YogaSole.com for tix, limited space so usually sells out. Great relaxing way to start off the weekend…
saturday, june 8
Saha Gnawa
Jalopy Brooklyn/Brooklyn Intl Music Festival
9:30 PM
The beautiful trance music of this Gnawa band is always a great way to spend an evening. Part of a weekend-long series of International Music bands you should check out, this performance features Maalem Haassan Benjaafar on the sintir and vocals, Daniel Freedman on drums, Gilad Hekselman and Guilherme Monteiro on guitar, and Amino Belyamani and Nawfel Atiq on qraqeb and vocals.
sunday, june 9
Swizz Beatz + Alicia Keys’ Art Collection +
Paul McCartney’s Eyes of the Storm exhibit
Brooklyn Museum
11 AM - 6 PM
Musicians’ appreciation of the visual arts is on display at Brooklyn Museum this month in multiple exhibits. Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys features a focused selection from the iconic musical couple’s world-class art collection featuring such famed names as Gordon Parks and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Also on display, through Aug. 18, is Paul McCartney’s collection of more than 250 photographs from 1963-1964 when The Beatles’ first U.S. tour skyrocketed them to superstardom. Eyes of the Storm is an inside look at the frenzy of Beatlemania, including the photos as well as video clips and archival materials from McCartney’s own personal and historical records.
AND if you happen to be upstate:
Yoga with Jessa and me for a Sacred Bloom Sound Bath on the lawn at Fromer Market Gardens in Tannersville! To support our neighborhood community center!! Join us
