I have had the privilege to watch ballet, and swing live on stage, see ballroom dancing in movies, and participate in folk, modern, Zumba, and the dance party dance. Airings was something else. Music or recordings of middle and high schooler voices played as a sound track while dancers used their bodies to show the experiences of the youth. In the background, projected images showed landscapes, definitions of words and in between dances images of teens texting each other appeared. We could see them type and retype their words, and it was humerus.

As described to me in an email, the dances dealt with: “gender, sexuality, bullying, forgiveness, friendship, love, and hope”. I had said and heard some of what the youth had said when I was in high school, but some of it was from a different perspective than mine. I found the dance about suicide very powerful.  I’m not suicidal nor, to my knowledge, where any of my friends.  I knew one of the people who committed suicide at my high school, but I didn’t know she was suicidal till afterward. While most of the performance takes on serious issues the dance ends with a beautiful piece which was a visualization of hope brought to life. I believe the performance incapacitates the lives of middle and high schoolers, whom it’s for, and shows those of us who aren’t what it is like to be a youth, it helps us listen. I would highly recommend this performance.