Soul

Music is the healing medicine of the soul. Dance, a balm and salve. The stage, a place to go. A jazz ensemble plays “Porgy and Bess” arranged by Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall as a modern dance company ascends the stage. The audience sways with hands over hearts.

The movement fluid and light flows from stage left to stage right. Performance is a world language. It is both esoteric and universal. It advances an argument. It is a lost art. The dancers bend and stretch. They lift their gaze to the stars. Their legs extend side and front. Then, in arabesque, a promenade. With leaps and turns, they demonstrate continuous motion between the stage curtains.

We will have time to rest off-stage and when the curtains close. For now, we embark on the illusion of immortality, though death is imminent. The audience returns home after witnessing a great light. People record the moment on their phones. Mini-reviews are published on Facebook and Twitter. Who would believe the accomplishment of the indefatigable artists who bowed with roses tossed at their feet?

We occupy space and time. We explore meaning and rhyme. Our passion is poetry. Our words elevate us. Tonight, the choreographer saved us, helped us imagine a world without race-based bias or discrimination where everybody who shares the stage is both prominent and nameless. Even Miles Davis was faceless. A night of live music and dance makes the skies spacious.

We read from books and speak with our souls. We rehearse and receive applause for raising the bar. Our goal is unity with our intent - the manifestation of hope and work. We shed our fears, like leaves from a tree. We share our expertise without hoarding wealth or knowledge, aimlessly. We combine instruction in science and the arts, as if life were a never-ending college. Our efforts, solid.

This night, I will not forget. It is the best of freedom and height, like staring at the edge of a cliff, sublime. But this is the stage where the towering genius plays with an instrument. The dancer, their entire body. The musician, a gift, whether an extension of their hands or breath. When they collaborate, it improves our mental health. Take a stealth journey to the theater. It is designed to exalt the humble. It makes us all believers in a world that's immaterial.