The performance “In:Between” included efforts to stand, to smile, to reach out, to fall down, to fear, to relent, to risk, and to rise. Curated by Out of Site Chicago, I performed for two hours on top of an inflatable mattress in a public square (Polish Triangle). Halfway through, I stopped to individually thank people for bearing witness and for being brilliant lights in the world.

“As we mature, literally and otherwise, we find importance in what supports that great balance of inclusion, of difficult themes next to joyous ones. Our integrity in the face of our fragile and childish hearts is what holds us upright. One’s relentless disclosure leads to beholders’ disclosure.”

In the last year, I have been faced with death profoundly, losing three of my most important mentors in my life—my teacher, my grandmother, and my father. During the last days of my father’s life, I helped to bathe, feed, and honor him with unwavering endurance and compassion. In these moments, I watched him as he reached again and again for some other world, as he traversed the places between life and death. It has left me longing to be close to him in ways I no longer can. I must acknowledge that there are places I cannot venture until it is my time and my place. On a subsequent visit to Prague, I found myself on a serendipitous trek to an exhibit about Death, finding myself bound to the lives and deaths of humans on a scale I rarely consider. My creative spirit was affirmed, for even amidst the devastation of death, art connected me to the spiritual support of my human race.

I now find myself in an unfamiliar place, not knowing what is “right” or even how to be in the world. Similarly, the dance is a question that lies somewhere between public and private, between art and life, between personal and political. I wish to be free from moral and ethical questions, but I find I am unable to separate. With “In:Between” I wish to find connection, to overcome my fear of isolation, to believe in my intuition, and to see myself through your eyes. I reveal my soul in hopes that I can honestly connect with a greater subconscious whole.

In honor of life, death, and the space I currently occupy that is in between.