20+ years a dancer, 7 months a mother
Sometimes I forget what it was like to be a beginner in dance... at the age of 3 I was already finding my way onto the stage to dance around (while my parents were frantically looking for me at a carnival).
Now, do I ever know what it's like to be a beginner "mom"!
What a shift in identity this is. What a life-long commitment.
I'm very often drawn to the big question of identity. What makes us tick? What makes me who I am? What has made me who I am in the past? What will define me in the future?
I'm a woman, blessed with the opportunity to have a child, a web of support, and express myself though dance.
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Thanks to GMD, I've felt very welcome bringing my little babe to dance class. Here he is at 2 months.
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Working in studio while baby stays at home for a few rehearsals back in May. photo by Marion Voysey
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I've been busy with my own improvised show, open every night at the Peever residence...but here are some highlights of the shows I was able to get out of the house to see this year:
-Wind-Down-Dance, Kaeja d'Dance and Michael Caldwell. This was baby Clarke's first time being in an audience of a dance performance! works in progress by a number of Choreographers including some artists I've worked with before: Aria Evans, Esie Mensah, and Karen Kaeja.
-Peggy Baker's Map by Years was a phenomenal show! I know I may have been more emotional due to nursing (I didn't know that was a thing!?) but man o man did that show move me! What an incredibly strong and giving woman she is!
-Fides Krucker's In this Body, featuring Peggy Baker, Laurence Lemieux and Heidi Strauss! What an all-star show! I watched this with my mother and we had to laugh because the music crossed the generational divide so well. Any song I didn't know, my mother did, and any song she didn't know, I did! We loved this show featuring some pretty amazing female artists!
-Modern Woman in Search of Soul and Mirrors Staging the Seeing Place, by Sasha Ivanochko, was the most recent show I've seen, and it was such a powerful show! Alana Elmer was absolutely stunning and shockingly, deliciously, loud. This piece included the opportunity to watch through the lens of an iPhone afterwards by following a link to YouTube, offering a different perspective, and the interesting presence of a cameraman throughout the live performance. Next was Kristy Kennedy in a piece that had me thinking more about my identity, how I see myself, and how it's likely different from what others see. And one of my baby's favourite activities: looking into and touching/hitting the mirror.
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A peek into rehearsals with Sky Fairchild-Waller and Syreeta Hector with photos by Marion Voysey.
This April and May I got the chance to work again on a new creation that I'm calling The End of the Road Project. This time together was a great creative time for me. Having taken a break from any creative projects since last August, I felt very satisfied to be back in the studio.
We've been looking into our identities and what causes us to make the choices we make-what pulls us in one direction or another. Stay tuned for a chance to see what we've been up to this fall.
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Lacey Smith is doing a great project that creates an opportunity for children who's families don't have the means to send their kids to dance. Please support this cause if you can so that more children get to express themselves through this most rewarding art form! Healthy, happy, body and mind. Click Here!
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