North Carolina
Building Bridges
Seventy performers on rooftops included homeless men, wheelchair dancers, seniors & school children, and city buses.
Original music composed for the site dance by David Crowe.
It began with an invitation. Sarah Campbell Arnett reached out, asking me to perform a dance piece ahead of an upcoming conference. Alongside Susan Sanger, she rallied support from the local community. With a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, they began reaching out to schools, dance studios, and even homeless shelters.
We chose a park just a few blocks from the conference hotel as our stage. Its proximity was intentional: we wanted the late-afternoon performance on Thursday to be accessible to as many attendees as possible, just before the official opening that evening.
Sarah also secured accommodations for me in a faculty guest house, vacant during my visit. I drove out with my car, not only to have transportation during my three-week stay, but to bring costumes and materials: white skirts, red unitards, flags, flagging tape, and a swath of blue fabric we called the “acorn cloth.”
Rehearsals took place with an extraordinary group: local schools, local dancers including a woman in a wheelchair, living with a rare connective tissue disorder that prevented her joints from supporting her; nine dance therapists, and nine men experiencing homelessness. The men choreographed their own movements, with the therapists joining them in an act of shared expression. I remember one man anxiously scanning the park, searching for his dance partner. When he finally spotted her, his face lit up. She crossed the park gracefully, dressed in a flowing white skirt and blouse, her white hair catching the light, she looked radiant.
After the performance, one of the unhoused performers turned to me and said, “Andy Warhol was wrong. It was more than 15 minutes.” One woman remarked that it was the first time she had felt safe outdoors since the events of 9/11 that fall.
The performance became a moment of connection: of art, music, and community. Even the parking garage played a role in the choreography. There were scores of flags everywhere, moving in unison for the Finale. What we created that day was not just a performance, but a testament to resilience, collaboration, and beauty in unexpected places.
The Dancers: Amy Alba, Susan Blasingame, Sharon Chaiklin, Anne Franklin, Lenya Treewater, Olynda Spitzer, Cadedra McCollum, Sara Olson, Kimberly Smith, Julia Leggett, teddy Moore, Brian Carter, Randy Chesson, Joe Davis, Daniel Dunn, Ardie Harris, Dwight Jones, Paul Manning, Corey Mooring, Marianne Adams, Sarah Arnett, Sally Atkins, Katherine Marie Battenberg, Cheryl Cook-Auerbach, Annica Davis, Mary Ita, Pam Margueles, Ann Lohn, Catherine Mcoubrey, Barbara Jo Stetzelberger, Carla Tandy, Lois Von der Goltz
Beth Pope’s Ligon Middle School Class: Fannezha Ford, Katherine Godley, Amber Hardy, Kinsie Howell, Katherine Lyman, Lindi Prevost, Julie Schmitz, Ivy Shaw
Cindy Hoban’s Martin Middle School Dance Company: Paulina Bracone, Blakeney Bullock, Ethan Chesson, Josh Dove, Anna Hardy, Mark Hemphill, Christina Kaplan, Katherine Kaplan, Lindsay Kay, Grant Ligon, Menna Mburi, Virginia Michaels, Hanna peterson, Melanie Ramsey, Jim Reynolds, James Rose, Ellie Ruttenberg, Lindsay Trione, Ana Vargo, Jeanne Vodicka, Andre Williams, Charlie Williams, Megan Wise, Alexandra Zagbayou