One Good Quote: Sarah Bush Dance Project's Spirit & Bones

Richelle Donigan. Photo by Amal Bisharat.

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you attended the performance of Sarah Bush Dance Project's Spirit & Bones at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco on October 26-28, 2018, please take a few minutes here to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. Then please sign it with your name and a descriptor, such as:

Jill Randall, Director of Life as a Modern Dancer

Chris Randall, dance enthusiast

Reed Randall, first-time audience member 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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Comments

[Jill Randall]

I have so much to say after experiencing Spirit & Bones last night. First - coming from a place a gratitude.....thank you to Sarah and company for the experience, the invitation, the effort and exhaustion to create and share the work. I am so full with color, textures, sound, and images. All of the parts indeed created an amazing whole. I keep coming back to the words whole and holistic.

And while, yes, we are talking about dance/choreography/movement - Spirit & Bones indeed represented the power of the art form to transcend just movement. It became a community experience, a series of indelible images, an hour of joy/feeling/presence/shared experience.

It is one of those shows, if given the time to write or share aloud, I could say something about each and every dancer, musician, designer, and director for the project. Thank you Sarah for your vision, your bravery, your risk taking, and your sharing last night.

Jill Randall
Blog Director, Life as a Modern Dancer
Artistic Director, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

[Andréa Spearman]

From my Facebook page:

“What’s on my mind?? Umm the fact that I couldn’t go to sleep last night and it’s all Sarah Bush’s fault LOL i was energized, invigorated and inspired!! I am continually rocked by this woman’s artistry and vision.
If you haven’t seen Spirit & Bones world premiere SF go see if there any tickets left!!
#SarahBushDanceProject #SpiritAndBones #danceislife #ilovemyjob “

[Barbara Hamilton-Holway]

Men and women who are on Earth
You are our creators.
We, the unconceived, beseech you:
Let us have living bread...pure water...clean air..Do not give us a world of rage and fear
For our minds will be rage and fear.
Do not give us violence and pollution
For our bodies will be disease and abomination...If you are ready to love and to be loved, invite us to this Earth.” Laura Huxley
My heart is full and overflowing with praise and bows of gratitude to all who are creating what has yet been conceived, especially to h Bush for bringing into being a communion of 15 women, ages spanning 50 years, to move with and beyond envy and competition to hold each other up, learn from one another, support and bless one another. When have I ever seen before a dance with all these ages of dancers - glorious elders, fierce and feisty middle agers, soaring young? Thank you for the backbone of women, for Spirit and Bones. Praise and thanks for an embodiment both of individual gifts and the beauty and strength of real community. Thank you for a vision of how together we can hold our communal pain, rage, and deep sorrow and after falling and diminishment, rise again and again and again. Thank you for this living bread, this thirst quenching water, this breath of fresh air. Thanks to all who are creating and conceiving out of love and bringing love into being.

[Barbara Hamilton-Holway]

Powerful women of Spirit and Bones: Dancers, the Band Skip the Needle, Set, Costume, Screen, Lighting, Program, Poster Designers, Crew/Support/Reception, Assistant Director, Director...Wow!🙏🏽

[Barbara Hamilton-Holway]

With “Spirit and Bones” so fresh in my consciousness, I walked the streets of my Oakland neighborhood, looking at each person to see their unique beauty and to offer them a smile and deep regard the way the dancers regarded one another. Now that’s profound, transformative theater!

[ken osborn]

Well, my overwhelming impression was that I felt the energy of the dance as much as I saw it. Beyond enjoyable.

[Beth MacLeod]

This performance lifted my spirits and left a deep impression i,n my bones; each and every dancer "spoke" so clearly ,powerfully and with such individuality, and yet as an ensemble, fierce-compassion was the indelible mark on my soul. More!!

[Beth MacLeod]

The musicians and the sound-score were also extraordinary, so much more than "accompaniment," rather an integral part of the beauty and power of this performance that reached off the floor and into the audience!

[Krista DeNio]

I wanted to stay longer, to linger in the community being built, the witnessing, the incredible music and phenomenal artwork magically appearing over time. The emotional response to seeing the women hold and honor one another was profound, because we simply don't have these spaces, or hardly enough of them. We simply don't take this time to see, witness, honor and be in ritual together---as a fabric of our society. The inspiration to honor the essential necessity of this. And of honoring women. And for all your beautiful artistry, each and every one of you. For these things I was super grateful to be present with you. Thank you.

[gail steinberg]

Masterful dancers, energy beyond the sky, enough inspiration for forever. A thrilling experience of we can, we do, power on.

[Claire Drucker]

I was just thrilled to feel the visceral power of women, in all of our passion, anger and vulnerability expressed through the mystery of movement. I live in Sebastopol and this kind of performance just doesn't happen, so I was thrilled to have the chance to witness it. I went dancing the next morning and felt like I brought that powerful energy to my community through my body and spirit. Thank you doesn't express the gratitude to all who made this happen!

[Susan Moffat]

Each dancer was her own unique self. And yet through the compassion and joy and power they shared with each other, it all added up to something unified and massive. And the band rocked! They were so much fun.

[Valerie Gutwirth]

What stayed with me longest (even longer than the gorgeous venue, superb costumes and ASS-KICKING BAND) was the difference in embodied presence in performance of the three groups of dancers. The younger group had a self-consciousness that tempered their breathtaking range, facility and ease, and rendered them human. The Wolves let loose with the abandon that comes only with deep understanding of the tension between passing years and physical prowess. The elders just seemed to relax, savor, and of course transmit/bless/ safeguard. The great poet Lucille Clifton wrote a poem “To My Last Period,” the last image of which is a group of older women commenting, “wasn’t she beautiful?”—it was like that, for me.

[Kristy Rice]

Tucked away in a box full of old games and toys I went home and found a little glass urn, full of marbles, music and the spirit of empowerment.

Spirit of women, bones of the Queen, flows through me, blessing all I give, all I receive and all that I am.

The Goddess in everyone inspires and empowers me!

[Anna Landauer]

The tenderness of the elder's blessing first brought me to tears. And I wept from then on until I smiled and laughed again as the scream turned into sound and tone and howling and in my very bones I felt changed. I remember now that I am supported by my sisters, daughters, grandmothers. I see in my mind the pulsing breath of that powerful force, dancers, women of all ages, shapes, sizes, colors, moving together, wings, paws, branches opening and closing with inhale and exhale. I see this, feel this memory and sitting here on my couch this morning the tears return. Not just the tears, which I welcome, but the shiver through my whole body reminding me of my strength and vulnerability, my dancing spirit, my bones. In every way I want to get up and tear through the world, fierce and tender, playful and serene, gathering my sisters, friends, loved ones along the way. Together, we hold each other up. I feel supported. Thank you. I am reminded once again of my roots, my soul calling, my wild dancing self, the purpose of my own art and creativity. Powerful.

[eve]

dance once again proves to be life itself, real life, not just pointed toes.

[Joyce Kushner]

Grateful to Sarah and her dancers for having shared "Spirit & Bones" with us. It was so full of beautiful, loving sisterhood spirit. It was wonderful to experience...I left the show with a warm heart and big smile on my face...much needed these days.

[Jordie]

Gorgeous. Simply stunning in every way. Moving and important. Multi-generational and multi-ethnic dancers. Women everywhere - in the band, dancing, in the audience, behind the scenes, crying, laughing, in awe, such a supportive space. PLEASE don't stop making your art...we need it as much as air - especially right now. I'm heartbroken it only showed a handful of times and thus I didn't have time to get my entire friend/family circle to go see it!