I am truly excited to share with Durham what we’ve been researching. We are working to connect, or perhaps reconnect, with each other. We are moving together to promise something. I am promising to be present and to love and care for fellow humans. I am also promising to not give up hope for a better tomorrow.
If I have to summarize I Promise, I would say that we are unique people/bodies/movers working to speak the same language. It may not look the same on each of us, but we feel each other. And we care. We care deeply.
Our company comes from all over the world. We are different ages, genders and people. We celebrate our differences. We lean on one another…. we lean on one another often. I believe that we are better to have that support.
Creating this work has not been an easy path. While creating this piece, as a company we have experienced the loss of loved ones and the effect of our government – including travel bans, threats against people of color, women’s rights and the LGBTQ community. What’s important to share is that these struggles have had space to exist in the creative process of the piece.
In our work, we create tension so that we can move through it. It’s become a therapeutic process. We are responding to the past, as well as the now.
I am not sure how I would have navigated this past year without being involved in a company like ShaLeigh Dance Works. I commend ShaLeigh for pulling such a diverse group of movers together, and for making us a family. I am not sure I would be sane without them. With them, I promise to be a better person. One who listens. One who cares. One who loves. One who honors a promise.
We are merely many atoms collected into a shape, and somehow we are gifted with a voice. And that voice can also dance. So ShaLeigh Dane Works dances together. And we promise together to dream of, and hope for, a world of understanding, acceptance and love.