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Community Performance Inc.

May 30, 2008

When the day gets so late and I don’t get to write at the end of it, I lose so much in the next days translation of events. And of course internet is AMAZINGLY difficult to get around here. Darn. We’re at the one week push now, where choreography, lights, set, costumes are all trying to come together, and we’re still a couple of run-throughs away from where I’m at my usual comfort level. And, it’s business as usual, of course, to be exactly where we are.

We did a huge night two nights ago of the Moonshine song. Oh, that is going to cut loose. Our men, the moonshiners- drinkers and bootleggers, get together and sing a wonderful ballad, half of which comes straight from the recipe given by Laylan Farmer, our noted moonshine master. (Not that he does it anymore. He doesn’t.) The men are having a ball with this number. We’ve got a group of women in this number, as well, who come in and do a little frisk on the men, partway through, to take the money their fellers made from bootlegging. It sounds like and is put together like an old silent movie rag. Tons of fun. That was all of Wednesday night. Haha. We heathens were working on a moonshine song whilst everyone else was at church.

Last night, we had a full cast. Everyone- the entire cast-- was there except for ONE person. We warmed up, and just for fun, we reviewed the Moonshine number first, just to give the rest of the cast a good laugh and put everyone in a good mood. Mission accomplished there.

Then we began to choreograph where we left off on Tuesday night, when we worked on March in the rain. Holy Frijoles. I’m not even going to say anything about WHAT the choreography is, because you have to come and see what is happening, what Iega is doing, what Richard is doing, what we’re all doing, really. It is a major, amazing moment, made possible simply from the courage of the people in the room, the leadership in the room, watching this all unfold, and the co-production of the CPI team with the community. It is our combined efforts, making this bold moment. The moment of hope, but it’s bigger than hope. The moment of change, but it’s bigger than change. It’s bigger than anything I thought we’d be able to do. And we all cheered at the end of it, at the end of the evening, and it was a HARD evening—very long. We worked, continuously, until 10:00 at night. We were tired and we kept on going. This moment needed attendance, and we gave it. Whew. And there was a clearer space for all of this to happen tonight. We broken open with each other on Tuesday.

More people than ever are standing in here, in their own power, and in doing so, stating with their presence, “This is MY project”. Young Moriah and Evan. Even younger Marilyn, and little Jeannie. The older folks, Mary Ann, Thomas, James, Mary, Peggy, Barbara, John, Jeff. “This is MY project. This is OUR project” Walking together, arm in arm, up that hill, over the bump in the road, taking a stand for the moment to come in the future, when it is not just an artistic expression, but an actual moment in time. This is what we are rehearsing together. Hope. Hope for the future, a new way of being in community with each other. I guess I am a romantic in that sense. I will always believe in the power of hope. I remember sitting in the living room with Studs and he was telling me about the book he was getting ready to write, after “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” came out, and he says to me this story about when he was visiting a farm in the southwest with migrant workers. He asked one of the women how she could keep on going, and she tells him in Spanish this phrase that I can’t remember exactly how Studs said it, (and I learned German in school, not Spanish, so I didn’t get the profundity of what he was trying to tell me), so I asked him what it meant, and he says pretty much it means, “Hope dies last”. It became the title of his next book, and it has become my mantra ever since. Hope dies last. Other things can fall apart around a story or a moment in time, or in my own life, but as long as there is hope, there is life. That piece of learning became central to the way I handle my work as an artist and as a human. I can write the hardest story, and can encounter any event, and as long as somewhere within or around it there is a shard of hope, no matter what else happens, I stand alive in that hope. We’ve got a lot of work to do before the VIP opening (which is really a glorified final dress rehearsal on Wednesday) not even one week from now. A lot of work. Lord have mercy, a ton of work. And, somehow, we’ll get it all done. We have faith. We have hope. We have an amazing group of courageous people standing in their power. I heard a few nervous folks last week say ‘I hope we can get all this done.” Yes. Indeed. Those words are music to my soul.

   

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