In the Wings

My deep, centering breath pulls in dark smells of fog and fresh wood. I exhale and lay on my back, as I wrap my heart around what I know. The floor is cool and firm and familiar under my shoulder blades. How many dance shoes have walked along these quiet carpets and shiny black floors that support me while I stretch? I feel honored to share a space with those who have paved the way before me, to be a part of something bigger than just myself. The stage does that. It turns its inhabitants into a community - a network of people with spontaneously formed bonds, that though quickly made and shortly lived, are as tight as the ropes on the fly rails at the end of my left foot, which is now stretching out from a split. I exhale until the muscle releases, then roll onto my back and pull my knee into my chest. The bobby pins at the back of my skull are forced to find their comfortable spot as I root deeply into the floor. I blink heavily through a layer of glue and false eyelashes - a necessary evil -  as my gaze drifts up the rails, up the rails...

On my side of the deep red curtain, warm yellow lights peer down through colored gels in a magenta haze. A suspended cloud of sawdust swirls in the light stream, ready to welcome the audience into our circus of theatrics. The rich bouquet of lowlight colors melts into darkness at the sides of the stage, where I am - moody, musing, and familiarizing myself with movement, presence, breathing...

My body pops, pulls, and cracks in all the usual places I’ve learned to deal with. It is my one tool in this whole realm of art. I must know thoroughly how to use it. I must be aware of how much I can abuse it. I stand and drop my head heavily, feeling the pull in my legs, the release in my back. I push my feet into the floor and the joints in my right foot pop more times than the joints in my left. I remember so well how each bit of me moves. And I feel so practiced at being practiced. For this is what I do.

Pre-show music bleeds mutely through the curtain as I mind my own business, peddling out my feet and rolling out my neck. That thick velvet barrier filters the noisy buzz of patrons taking their seats, so only muffled murmurs reach my ears. It is like shards of glass melting into dust as they burst through a force field - a white noise for my meditation. I am safe from jarring chatter. I am wrapped in heavy darkness. I am stilled by a penetrating sensation of quietness - the calm before the storm.

As I slowly stack the vertebrae of a spine, my focus aligns like beads on a string. A subtle electricity rises from the depths of my core and spreads through my limbs, to my fingertips and toes, as I revel in an anticipation that feels familiarly like a secret about to be revealed. I am arrested by a feeling that makes time feel heavy, and me feel present. I am reminded how much I love practicing what I do and how hard I’ll work for it, and how I’ll never cease pushing and pursuing and growing and doing. I want to savor the pieces, yet swallow it whole. I want to sync with the jitters, and ride on the rush. The stage is my element, and I'm ready to take it, just as soon as I hear that butterflies-in-my-stomach phrase: “Places please.”

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