Balance. Collaborate.

Balance.  Collaborate.  Push & pull, give & take.  These are characteristics of a dance company that I did not understand I valued so highly…until I joined coEXIST.  From other experiences I have learned that professional dance companies are demanding on schedules, mental energy, physical commitment, and loyalty.  In coEXIST I learned that a company can also request that you’re committed artistically and genuinely.  In accepting the position of company member, I also signed myself up for a new family and support system, somewhere I felt comfortable enough to allow my creative juices to flow.  My ideas and contributions became important and heard.  I began to grow in my dancing and in my real person life.  The company’s dedication to the community has been especially rewarding.  It’s a 2for1 deal: community&company!  We all challenge each another in a multitude of different ways, and I think that’s what makes us so magnifique. 

From being here I’ve solidified my own life’s philosophies and the more specific role I’d like dance to play in my life.  I want dance to be energizing, enlivening, enlightening for everyone.  I do wish to continue dancing professionally, wearing costumes and hairspray and lipstick and getting butterflies.  When I am dancing I get a feeling that could never be put into words.  On an equal level, though, I want others to have their own experiences with movement, finding those indescribable feelings in a personalized way.  But that’s why I want to become a dance therapist, eh?  And from engaging in the community with coEXIST through performance, workshops, intensives, eating lunch, I can be sure that I’ll do whatever it takes to get there.

But I know somewhere along the past something-over-a-year, I’ve also helped coEXIST to grow.  And that’s what I mean by my opening words.  We support and challenge each other, shining beacons in darkness and pushing forward.

Whitney