Story Power

On Friday October 24th, I was asked to participate in a storytelling event called Cocoon at Middlebury College.  Cocoon is a spin-off of the highly acclaimed radio series The Moth.  The rules are that the story has to be true and told without note cards or visual aids.  I told a story about a boy that I didn't know much about, my father.  During the story I spoke of the few facts I knew about him like where he was born and that he loved to play football.  And most vividly about how he lost his legs in Vietnam before my brother and I were born, how I became a professional dancer and how we only danced together once.

Weeks have past since I told the story and cried in front of a concert hall filled with 372 people but to my surprise one of them came into my office today and told me a story in return.  As I was sitting in my office this morning an older white gentleman in his late 60's or early 70's walked into my office and took off his hat.  He began to introduce himself and I stood up and came in front of my desk to shake his hand and say hello.  He told me his name was Conrad and proceeded to tell me that I didn't know him but he heard me tell my story at the Cocoon and that he was also a Vietnam veteran.  He sat down and told me that my father was a real hero and that the reason that I didn't know much about him was because the war was hard to talk about.  He then went on to tell me that I was also brave for telling my story at Cocoon and I asked him if he would tell me a story.

He told me about his return home from Vietnam and how he was met by protestors at the airport, how a flight attendant put him in first class, and how when the pilot announced they would be landing in 15 minutes he burst into tears.  He told me he buried everything else and that I and 1 other person were the only two people he has ever told about his service in Vietnam.  He never told either of his 2 wives or his children. And the reason he came to see me was that he had recently relocated to the area and had to find a new Veterans day ritual, so he came to see me.

I was honored, I wept, and I thanked God for my story. I hope he comes back by to take me up on my offer of coffee at some point and I hope he has more stories to share.  This experience has taught me that my practice of saying yes has the power to do so much more than I imagine.


I may possibly share the audio from this story on my website at some point.

This Happened in Haiti

We are conjurers of spirit
all at once forging towards the future
while insisting on the past

We magic vessels of time

We moving liaisons of ghosts

We dancing through a continuum of light

studying the details of God's physical manifestation
through myths and steps of sincere worship
we begin to undo ourselves for the sake of
assembly a visible and visceral truth We
be therefore undone, unkept, unspeakably powerful

We be black, surface bound and belligerently beautiful

We be spirit
We be light
We be dancin
We be God

Honesty and Autonomy

Throughout the course of my life, I have had the opportunity to travel to various parts of the US and abroad.  These travels have afforded me a wealth of knowledge and experiences that shape my world view.  Without travel my understandings would be limited to my preferences and my biases and confirmed by my assumptions.

When I travel, what frightens me and thrills me the most is the sense of strangeness I feel in unfamiliar places.  I begin again.  My understandings become frail myths and the journey to being, begins again.  Being a stranger avails me to the gift of autonomy where I do not presume to know or be known by my surrounding and fellow inhabitants.  My strangeness gives me license to ask, inquire and the privilege to be taught.  Traveling keeps me honest in a way that I believe the comforts of my present life do not.  My normal routine shelters me from misunderstanding and discomfort.  I do not need to reach far to find understanding or comfort when I am surrounded by people, places, and things that speak my language and share my same values.

Becoming a stranger is my way of gaining perspective on my own reality.  By stepping outside my construct of life I am able to see my weaknesses, rejoice over my blessings, and create goals for my life that allow me to not only be a better person but a better friend to the world.  Traveling keeps me honest and gives me the ability to see clearly in a convoluted world.

Mother and Artist

Recently, I have been asked about my relationship to my life as a mother and an artist.  In some specific cases attributes of being single and African-American have made the inquiries even more specific.  The questions have lead me to analyze my role and come to the conclusion that mothering and artistry go hand in hand.

Mothers create life, nurture understanding, facilitate growth, and deny themselves for the greater good of a life they deem more valuable than their own.

Artists give life to work, share their visions to promote deeper understandings, delve deep into process to build products of perspective, and deny themselves for the greater good of the work.

I was asked what tools I have taken from my life in dance into my role as a mother and the most prominent tool is discipline.  My training as a dancer offered me the structure I needed to build a capable body, mind and spirit.  The discipline of dance taught me to deny my fears and strive for my passion no matter what I "felt" like.  Rehearsals taught me that there is power in repetition if we submit to the ritual, and within that submission there is strength.  As a mother, I offer this discipline to my son by being consistent and creating structures that give him the courage to pursue his life passionately yet boundaries that keep him growing in the right direction.

In addition to discipline, trust is also a huge factor in my professional and personal life.  On stage trust equals authentic performance. I have always trusted God to dance me on stage and do what I knew was not in my power.  In my role as a single parent I trust that God will provide for my son  that which I cannot. Each decision I make in regard to his well-being is one of faithful assurance that all my experiences and training are valid and valuable.  This is the same decision making process I learned as a performer, choreographer and teacher.  Trusting God allows me to trust the process, which allows for greater possibilities.  Therefore, I trust the outgrowth of my artistry and the upgrowth of my son.


Check out the FIRST #SydChats: TRIUMPHS AND CHALLENGES OF BLACK MOTHERS WHO ARE DANCE ARTISTS

Photo of Gabe and I accompanied this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthonia-akitunde/black-mothers-are-the-wor_b_4820530.html

Featured on Mater Mea
http://www.matermea.com/#/christal/4565412847

The Challenge of Change

“All that you touch you Change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.God is Change.”

                                                                                                Octavia Butler

Transition, movement, change; some of the most intimidating words in any language.  Not because of what they imply but because of what they require. When we are asked to go through a transition we do not fear the beginning or the end, we quiver in the middle. Our stomachs turn and at our core we are undone. When we are asked to create we do not doubt the vision or its manifestation we find discomfort in the process.  For artists the process is where purpose is forged, fought for, and forfeited.

As an endeavor toward consciousness I strive to stay open to the process of change.  My present comfort often allows me to be swayed into a false sense of security, for which the perils are much greater than ignorance.  The war for understanding is fought at the crossroads of fascination and fright.  At times I am paralyzed by both and enamored by my individual weakness to stand and only stand.  Yet, as I find courage to open my eyes and take in the fullness of the battlefield, I find courage in the actions of other warriors who battle for change.  Day in and day out bodies of truth lay aside their personal needs for the well-being of others and steep themselves in lives not meant for them in order to see their place and play a new position.  Moving as vessels and being moved by a deep desire to manifest meaning we all take to the stage of life and do our best to perform in step, in relation, and in concert with all things that is Gods artistry.

No fear, deep faith, daily change……..