And then it was over

Wow – last day – as expected – bitter sweet. This entire week it has felt like this needs to be over. All of us miss family, miss home, miss – well not having to get up to stomp every morning. So the timing on the workshop was just right – another week would be too long. One less would be too short. Watching people I have grown to know over this month on stage this morning creating some beautiful, funny, sad, lively work through Viewpoints was just delightful. Anne created combinations that included some people we have not worked with all summer – so there was a new dynamic at play. The addition of the lights orchestrated by Bondo and then Leon were wonderful – great new element to play with. As we have had this past week – the addition of the musicians made for some beautiful moments.

Suzuki in the afternoon was not quite what I expected. Since we were presenting to whoever showed up to watch I thought that they might keep it simple to, you know, let us show off what we had learned. Nope. Ellen immediately started throwing stuff at us that we were unfamiliar with and had to navigate on the spot. As she has said a number of times – her job is to keep us off balance – to fuck us up. That she did. That she did. Ellen is really such a wonderful teacher. She initially comes off as very hard and cold, but once you get past that there is someone who care very deeply about what she communicates and what we learn. I can’t speak for all of the teachers here this summer, but I spent a fair amount of time studying how each of the instructors approach the material.

The final performances were great to watch – but for those of us who performed yesterday the feeling was that things had already kind of ended. Strike was fun – I really do like to do lighting stuff, as was the party. I am writing this between the part and the after party with the hope of getting to bed at a decent hour. But there are people to talk to and say goodbye to – so I will head over for a bit.

I have no idea what happens next. No idea what will stick with this training and what won’t. I made a point of talking with each of the instructors tonight and letting them know how grateful I was for their energy and wisdom. They change 60 lives every summer. Not a bad gig to have. Not everyone embraces the training and not everyone gets something out of this, but the experience of living and working with all of these amazing folks has to have an impact in some way. My task at this point is to spend the 12-hour ride home thinking about what to do next. How do I reach toward this beautiful, wonderful energy and sustain it in my life? That is a tough question to answer.