Lettuce Turnip and Dance to the Beet

I L.O.V.E. the internet.

Like, love it.

It enriches my life in a thousand ways, not the least of which is this big, beautiful blogosphere.

And yet sometimes I just need a break.  A technology time-out.

Time to look beyond the screen and see the details of Spring blooming around me.  Time to engage face-to-face and not typing-hand-to-typing-hand.

But like all true and strong loves it was only a matter of time before I was drawn back in.

Hi.  I missed you!

I’ve been a busy lady.

Last Wednesday I drove over the mountains to West Virginia and into the arms of Trillium Performing Arts Collective.  I can wholeheartedly say that I would not be who I am today without this amazing group of artists.  From a very young age (4? 5?) my week was organized around dance class at Trillium and by the time I was finishing high school it was clear that the thing my body, mind, and spirit wanted most was to keep dancing.

After graduation I stuck around West Virginia for two years teaching, choreographing, and performing with Trillium.  The other core artists were all my parents age but they treated me as a contemporary and helped me grow into my own during that often challenging post-high-school-but-still-a-teenager stage.

I left Trillium and the Mountain State over a decade ago but I have returned to the stage and studio over the years as a guest artist.   Since returning “back East” a year and a half ago Trillium has once again shaped my life as a dancer.

When I moved to Charlottesville I hadn’t danced in a year and a half, the longest I’d gone since starting, and was skeptical about whether it was still for me.  Luckily, Trillium handed me three contracts so back into the studio I went.  And I tell you what, it was like reuniting with a long lost friend, the kind of friend who you hug hello and then pick right back up where you left off.  Yep, I’m a dancer.

One first contract was for their show last May, in which I performed an improvised solo about living in the present moment.  Here’s the post about that performance.  The second was to choreograph a dance for the high school touring company, which I did over one crazy weekend in October.  The third was for the concert this past weekend.  I choreographed and performed a solo about my love of food, particularly vegetables.  Seriously.  It is titled “Lettuce Turnip and Dance“.  Seriously.   It was a hit.  I’m still working on getting it up on YouTube but I’ll let you know when I do.

The concert also included the piece I did for the teen company and they made me so proud!  Aren’t they beautiful?!

 

 

 

 

 

So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last 5 days, how about you?