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pottywater · 4 years

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Dancing on the EDGE

Edge had just barely opened the first time I’d walked through its doors 28 summers ago. Before the exposed brick, or the vivid primary walls, when it was just white, and new, and so rapturously exciting. I was still in high school. I was a baby, but I was convinced - this special place is where I wanted to be.

Two years later, officially my home, I was an Edge scholarship, fumbling through the year, withstanding more dance than I’d even known I could muster. Living in a new city, still a baby nonetheless, but finding my people, training to my hearts desire and falling in love with dance, which meant hating and loving dance. Helene was there - my inspiration. And Terri - my heart. And Bill and Randy and Carol - always.

This is hard. I cry as I type. Having moved a lot as a kid and having lived the gypsy experience, I’ve only ever known one constant home - Edge Performing Arts Center. I’ve left more sweat in those sacred rooms to fill a million plastic water bottles (that’s one re-usable, sustainable water bottle, lots and lots of times). How many combos learned does it take to get your Masters? My knees tell me I’d have a doctorate. Edge was my science lab.

I’ve auditioned at Edge, held auditions at Edge, created masterpieces to middling numbers, pretty good works to flaming piles of dog mess, all because I was allowed to try - over and over again. I was given countless opportunities to succeed and fail - mostly fail because that’s what paved the way for success, both minor and major, personal and prominent. And isn’t that precisely what Bill and Randy did? They invested in us. They gave us a space to go for our dreams - whether or not we touched them was sort of up to us. That’s at least, what I told my students, in some version of a monologue.

A decade of teaching at Edge - special times, indeed were had. If you knew, you knew, and thank you for knowing. My class wasn’t for everyone, but if you could tolerate my chatter and had some technique, then you might’ve partook. We told stories through movement, you listened, I watched, I shaped some dancers and grew up in the process. It changed me forever.

I’ve bled on those floors. Cried on those floors. Reached heights I didn’t know I could reach on those floors. Slipped on those floors. Spilt tea on those floors. At times fallen asleep, dead to the world on those floors. If walls could talk, yes, the legends and divas they’ve seen, but the floors, my God, they’ve felt me, endured me, and beat me, implored me, sustained me through back aches and heart aches, bookings and gigs to sneer at or celebrate. Life happened and I went to those floors. I owe an insurmountable debt to those floors.

Thank you Bill and Randy for generating generations of choreographers and teachers and studio owners and actors and singers and directors and casting directors and writers and producers and fitness instructors and doctors and accountants and pilots and moms and dads and most importantly, DANCERS, both recreational and professional. For all of the free space, my God, you put art and craft above your own bottom line so dance companies stood a fighting chance and penniless performers could live and spread love and life. Thank you for the limitless supply of class offerings - the stalwarts to the ones that didn’t last long to the ones that spread their wings for other landing places. You gave them space. You let them fly. Thank you to Eddie and Kitty and Denise and Cindera and Adam and Malaya and Nicole and Laura and Mandy and Teeny and Sabrina and Lisa and Liana and Chelsea and Liz and Jackie and Michael and Terry and Wes and Alex and Tovaris and Frank and Ryan and Mecca and Nina and Karine and Andre and Doug and all of those that have taught and enriched and gave of themselves to sometimes 3 or 112 students at a time. To the frontline managers through the years that suffered at the desk, mini crisis after crisis. To Eileen and Tim, the tried and true. To Eliana and Rhonda and Keith and Carol for delivering on a promise.

And to Randy and to Bill - you strived for excellence in dance education and in doing so, you educated all of us about excellence in Life. We mourn this loss with you. WE are your dividends. WE are your legacy.

Edge Performing arts Center - a place, both on the 4th floor of a storied tv dinosaur and a ground floor, cutting Edge turn key. But it’s more than an address. Every. Single. Amazing. Thing. That life has gifted me, was because I entered that building 28 years ago. My tribe, my family, my Love, my passions and dreams and aspirations, my greatest memories, my story - I owe to EDGE.

#edgepac #dance dancer dancerslife

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pottywater · 9 years

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Hillary Hillary Hillary

It’s such a complex subject, it needs to be said 3 times. It, in this case, is a she, but she, as it were, is probably the most aware that her name is incongruous with a concept. A concept so polarizing, how could she not be the representative notion (win or lose) of this contradictory times? I’ve decided to journal my thoughts on the subject. You see, I am voting for Hillary, but it may or may not be why you think. Some reasons are obvious (I’m a staunch progressive, but a realist before that) and others aren’t so obvious but need to be said. For me, the basis of my rationale starts in the past. I’ve been a feminist since around the age of 6. Even when I didn’t comprehend the idea, I understood Girl Power. Their fight was my fight, their successes were mine. I am fully convinced that homophobia is rooted in misogyny. That is a whole other topic and worthy of it’s own accounting and so I digress. Needless to say, I have spouted the urgency for a female POTUS way before anyone else I knew and ions before the acronym POTUS was coined. It should come as no surprise that Hillary was my candidate in 2008. I campaigned for her, I wore her t-shirts, I gave money to HillaryforPresident.com… every month… automatically withdrawn from my account. And then she lost. I’ll never forget it. I watched her concession speech, that day in June, from a hotel room in Stockholm, Sweden and I cried. And the rest is history. Something that needs to be dispelled right away is the seemingly “blind” faith of feminism. I’ve heard from many and read from even more the idea that “Hillary only wants you to vote for her because she’s a woman” or, flipped, and that “feminists are only voting for her because she’s a woman”. Part of the reason that I always admired her is that she had ambition. In a world that was ruled by men and from a generation that had to type their way to the top (the top in this case being several floors below the actual patriarchal penthouse), Hillary had verve and pluck and an insane capacity to take whatever was thrown at her, be it insults, shit or bricks. It’s funny to me that we have this world tilted towards (white) men, where women have had to bite and claw and bulldoze their way to the top. Then we get mad at them for biting and clawing and bulldozing their way to the top. Indulge me in this short skit.

EXT. SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS — TOWN SQUARE — DAY

An angry mob of townspeople have gathered to watch the witch trials commence. They hold pitchforks and wooden clubs. They spit and shout vile obscenities.

At the center of things is a woman, dressed in the latest pilgrim trends, her hands tied behind her back and rigged to a chair that hangs from a rope. The chair dangles over a large wooden tub filled with water to the brim. Her name is Beth.

One man presides over the raucous crowd. He is smug and happy running the show. His name is Newt. Newt’s henchmen stand by his side, ropes in their hands, waiting for directions.

NEWT

I will ask you again, Beth, daughter of Satan. Do you subscribe to witchcraft?

BETH

No. I have said time and again. I am not a witch.

NEWT

Then it is your choice.

Newt gives the sign and the henchmen release their grip of the rope. The chair that Beth sits in drops into the oversized bucket. The crowd goes wild.

After 30 seconds, the sign is given and the drenched woman is pulled from the water. She gasps for air. The crowd quiets.

NEWT

I shall ask you one more time. Are you Beth, spawn of Lucifer and heir to his crown, a witch?

BETH (crying)

No, I say. I beg of you, please please don’t—

The sign is given and the chair is dropped. The crowd goes wild, increasing in volume. They dance and sing.

After a minute, the drowned woman is pulled from the tub. All eyes shift to the lifeless body. A long pause. Then, she spits out water. She chokes for air. The crowd collectively gasps. Murmurs of “she’s a witch” and “immortal doesn’t die” can be heard.

NEWT (to himself)

Well, I’ll be.

(than louder for the crowd)

Beth, with your wild, curly hair and your knowledge of songs derived from the southern states. I hereby, condemn you to death, you being the devil’s concubine and most of all a—

BETH (screaming)

I’M NOT A FUCKING WITCH!!

The crowd in utter dismay, hushes and gulps. Newt turns three shades of red. The audacity of her.

NEWT

What a bitch. Drop her.

The chair is dropped. THE END.

So, for the purposes of the long 18 months ahead of us, let’s stop saying that women (or supporters of) need a host of reasons to simply get behind the one woman who has been dunked time and time again and and still made it out of the bucket. And, of course, that isn’t to say that she isn’t qualified on her own merits because she is and it’s a moot point. Add on top of that her decades of bucket dunking and she might just be the most vetted candidate ever. The “I’m all for a woman being President, but not for Hillary” reasoning is fine and anyone’s prerogative to have, but name, for me, another woman who is in the foreseeable future (as if the country has valid reasons to wait another 5/10/30 years for a more digestible female) that can and will rise to the top of the food chain unscathed. Keep in mind, this woman has to have the desire and the will power to make such journey. As we’ve seen with our progressive darling, Senator Warren, we can wish all we want, but ultimately it’s not us who has to endure the fire of campaigning in boy’s town. And finally on this first subject, for those of you angry at her or her defenders for throwing out the female card… whether you know or not, you have been voting for a man just because he’s a man this whole time. Moving on. Those are the more obvious reasons as to why I am voting for Hillary, but she’s not as clean as we’d all like her to be, am I right? It’s been said many times over this week since she announced her candidacy, the civic grounds as to why all democrats and independents alike need to show up on election day. Supreme Court justices, the environment, income disparity, equal rights, separation of church and state, the plight of our immigrant brothers and sisters all would fare better with her or any democrat frankly in the oval office. It might not be to the full extent of your politics (me included), but in more conservative hands it would be a disaster. This we know, or at least are figuring out and it certainly bears repeating, but there is a deeper more poignant truth to this debate that must be acknowledged. The Obama administration has been the catalyst for a huge awakening in this country. It is my opinion that the first decade of this century was a big sleepfest. All of us (well, maybe not all) were unconscious in various states of being. The shit that went down in the Bush years and before (the senseless wars and bloodshed, the deregulation that led to catastrophic calamity, just to name a few) are hopefully behind us. I‘m not saying that there aren’t on-going partisan fights still rooted in these very idealogical differences, but at least we are more aware that it’s happening. The alarm clock started chiming around “YES WE CAN”. The problem is most everyone has been pushing the snooze button for 6 to 7 years. Everyone thought YES WE CAN meant “we did, now go and do it, Obama”. Obama’s biggest mistake was to stop the rallying cry and to not fully explain what it means. It means WE as in all of us have to get off our asses and participate. Most of the country has been in Sunday morning phase. You know when you’re awake but really don’t want to get out of bed, but you at least have the morning paper and you see the shit that is happening and you complain really loud… in your pajamas. If you think that Obama is going to change your daily life or that Hillary is going to be the anit-Christ or that things would have been substantially better with Romney, you be crazy. Do you want to know how to affect the most change in your daily-everyday-every-second life? Get involved in the lowest level of government. Your local, micro-gov’t is where you have the most power. Trickle down economics don’t work, neither does trickle down gov’t. Let’s make things happen from the ground up. It really does take a village…. interesting. The only thing that is apparent in these times is that elections have become chess games for the super wealthy. Money talks and their money speaks the loudest. Who knows the truth anymore? Any billionaire that owns airwaves or newspapers or candidates can spread his message faster than the time it takes you to read this really long op-ed. Is Hillary really the evil witch she’s been purported to be? Maybe, who knows? Or maybe we’ve been Salemed. Is Ted Cruz really the racist idiot that the left has painted the picture of? Ok, bad example, but you get the point. Start thinking for yourselves. The best thing we can do is turn down the volume of the hysterical rhetoric for the next year an half and have them yell at each other. Or else it’s going to be a loooooong election cycle. So I’m not giving my money to Hillary this time. Let the 1% fund that train. I’m spending my hard earned cash on local companies that believe in the same philosophies I do. I’m not yelling about who’s in bed with Monsanto or who’s tied to wall street, because they all are. They are apart of the corrupt game that we’ve fostered along and allowed to take over. I’m not waiting for government to regulate my food because I’ll have cancer by the time they do, so I’ll buy locally and organically until then. I’m not putting my money in the big banks because they just pay off their CEO’s with it. I’ll put it in local credit unions instead. After this long rant I won’t (or at least try not to) campaign for the presidency. I will, however gently remind you to research your propositions, to vote, to participate, to stand up for what you believe in and to give a damn. Let’s all give a damn about the things in which we really can control. And as far as the bigger picture, the things that we have less control of, such as general elections… you have to take one for the team. Which team is up to you, but to skip it and to stay apathetic is like pushing the snooze button for another four years and don’t you think it’s time to get up? Disclaimer: I’m just a gay, progressive Californian who probably won’t debate you, but respects your opinion regardless. Peace.

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