“In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.”
I first encountered this quote in early 2013 when I was still a student at The Boston Conservatory. It was gifted to us by the vibrant Nicole Smith, then a repetiteur of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, setting Mr. Jones’ D-Man in the Waters on my junior class. The masterpiece from 1989, is still frequently performed by schools and companies, and was made during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Mr. Jones’ partner Arnie Zane had just passed away from an AIDS-related death the year before, and company dancer Demian Acquavella (whom this work is dedicated to: “D-Man”) passed the year after. Although created as a way for the company to deal with the grief, this piece brings with it triumphant joy; celebrating the perseverance of a community who carry each other through to survival.
The piece itself requires the dancers to exert an unstoppable momentum — to dive, roll, and belly-slide alongside Mendelssohn’s exuberant Octet in E-Flat Major, Op. 20; jumping into one another’s arms, catching one when one falls, carrying each other through to the very end. Clad in combat fatigues, it is a journey which one cannot finish alone, but where one must participate in the group effort to inspire strength within.
15th of April 2013, two homemade pressure cooker bombs detonated near the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon. It killed three, injured many, and dismembered the limbs of sixteen. My school was only about half a mile away from the finish line and I evacuated promptly. Entering the street I saw a panicked plethora of students and civilians running to and fro. Crying, calling loved ones, collective sounds of sirens pushing into the city; chaos.
Arriving back to my apartment the frenzy continued as Boston went into a total lockdown. We helplessly froze in grief, gluing our faces to the news as we followed the progression of the city-wide manhunt. Uncertainty rang the air with stagnant fear, classmates traumatized from witnessing the finish line. We called our friends and anyone we could think of in hopes that nobody was a direct victim. As the night went on, all we could do was watch as the news revealed the dead and the injured, one-by-one. I felt myself distant, unable to process how one could commit such a blind, heinous act against humanity.
A noticeable chill cut through the air when we returned to school some days later. Utter feelings of loss haunted the city, and still a disbelief that such terror had been so close to us. We each held our own grief, but also left space to take care of each other.
Nonetheless we were due to perform D-Man in the Waters that same weekend. And for once in my training it was so clear why I do, what I do. The audiences were solemn, but each night we could feel the potent transference of unity; using a collective effort to lift up one another. As I catapulted off the back of my dear friend Curtis, into the arms of another, Michael, we were journeying through a revival of human spirits; all undeniably there for each other. We were all well aware of the grim circumstances we were performing under; but also of the gift we had to be there — alive, healthy, and with the ability to move our bodies the way that we did. In united endurance through the hardships, we found rejoice and resilience.
I’m thinking about this piece and this time today, because I recognize a similar panic and grief in our global community amidst our fight against COVID-19. Of course there are many inherent qualities that make this crisis different from any other, disabling us from physically being together let alone make/watch live art. But the answer is still the same — we desperately need each other and we need to strive to find ways of feeling together no matter how isolated we have to be. We mustn’t selfishly make it only about ourselves, or blame a country, or its entire race. We’re in a global pandemic and we’re going through it together.
We may only be at the tip of our dives into instability and perhaps surviving this epic only by the belly-slide, but there will be triumph found amongst this mess. And part of that triumph is up to us — to stay open, to keep creating, to find unusual solutions to this unusual situation, and to undeniably be there to support anyone and everyone. (And of course stay at home, and wash your hands).
1998 performance of D-Man in the Waters (Pt. 1) by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co: