Friday night, many familiar faces joined together to share an intimate evening of dance presented by members of Headwaters Dance Co. and The Open Field Artists. Dawn Hartman, Sarah Bortis, Kitty Sailer, Ann Campbell and Heidi Junkersfeld danced for an hour straight, and in the process nearly brought me and many others to tears. It was beautiful.

The evening began as a good friend greeted me at the door where she was taking tickets. She invited me to remove my shoes and find a seat on the cushions, which were arranged in a square around the room. Quiet evening sunlight melted into the room, and I noticed many people that I recognized. I found a seat and waited for the performance to begin.

Having seen The Open Field Artists before, but never having seen Headwaters Dance Co., I was not sure what to expect during the course of the evening. I had spoken with one of the dancers, Heidi, a few days before the show, and she told me that this piece is different than anything I had seen before. She was right.

Kaila June Gidley walked out onto the floor and began the night by welcoming us into the dance space where she spent so much of her time in Missoula. She smiled as she shared with us what the Missoula community means to her, and how happy and lucky she feels to have been a part of it. She spoke for about five minutes before telling us that her time to leave has come, and she wanted to share with us the beauty of the space in which we were all sitting. Kaila explained a little bit of what to expect from the piece, and then the dancers came out and began running around us along the perimeter where we sat. They dove and slid across the floor from different “doorways” in the seating arrangement.

As I watched, I was thinking, I don’t know anything about dance. I don’t know what it means. I decided, though, that “getting it” on an intellectual level isn’t important to me. I “get it” on a visual and an emotional level, I “get it” on a physical level, knowing how difficult it is for someone to move their body in those ways. Much like classical music, dance is not something for me to have to think about. I just need to soak it in and let it envelop me.

I couldn’t wrap my head around some of the concepts, like Butoh, which Heidi had told me about, and Kaila touched on explaining briefly as she spoke in the beginning. Butoh traditionally explores the “transmutation of the human body into other forms, such as smoke, dust, ghosts, and animals”, earth, water, fire, wind, sky, war. Granted, the performance was not true Butoh, but it used elements from the form to communicate to the audience. There were times during the performance where I actually had to remind myself to breathe, the piece was so intense, the way the dancers moved their bodies with each other, the amount of love and trust visible on the floor.

Towards the end of the performance, the five women stood in the center of the room and sang from Sinead O’Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. As they sang, they would pause and dance, then fall into each other. You know the “Do you trust me? The let go, and I’ll catch you” game that we all played as children? It was much like that, but more intense. “Dawn, fall”, Heidi said, and Dawn fell into her and all four of the other women supported her, but moved her body around on theirs, passing her around and gently holding her as they moved. Each of the women fell in turn and the other four supported them.

I don’t know how to write about dance, really, but it was amazing, beautiful, emotional and intimate. I’ll leave you with some text from The Secret of the Vajra World by Reginald A. Ray that was included on the program that was distributed at the door:

and so it is

we see each other, and how?
I see myself, with what lens?

to negotiate circumstance,
the well of knowledge flows
making ancient electric fire.

when associations fall short,
when the program loses memory,
when the space thickens,
and language is lost,
what then?

I learn.
and
there you are.

whether you sit or stand,
if I kneel or lay,
our ground is the same.

the invitation is woven.
time’s golden thread
incessantly spins
a curiosity of potentials,

held close by forty hands….