This past weekend brought the semesterly student show produced by the students at UNLV’s Dance department. Each and every piece was beautiful and brilliantly created, but one hit harder than the rest. It was a piece by Dance Major, Carolyn Lajara, dedicated to her father. In her piece there were so many moments of absolute perfection. Many times, it hurt to watch but I love her for making it. It starts with a girl holding a picture of the lost one, wearing his sweater, then suddenly a male dancer walks out, clearly implied as the one who is gone, and she runs up to him and kinda looks him over as if to say is it really you? Are you here? Then later on the rest of the dancers enter the stage and their hands are shaking and faces contort with worry and it so perfectly embodies that explosive stress you have when you first find out. It puts me back to the day I found out, when no matter how far you walked, you couldn’t escape your mind. Further into the piece there is a sound that imitates an almost distant screaming and the dancers throw their arms around each other with their mouths agape and it’s that same internal screaming that overwhelms your head. The endless wail of your soul that only you can hear but it never goes away. Then we get to a part that the main girl is running slow motion, heading to the guy who is illuminated in a ghostly lighting, finally she breaks from the slowness and runs, leaping towards him only to be caught by the other dancers and stopped before she reaches him. You often feel like they’re still so close, you run to them in desperation but you can never actually reach them… they’re gone. Later there’s a moment where she is alone in a spot light while the dancers wander off the stage. She is clutching to her head, pressing her temples in that way you do when you have a raging headache that won’t go away, in that way you do when you’re trapped inside your mind in despair and can’t get out. Nobody knows you’re stuck but you sit there so utterly alone, eaten alive by grief. Then, elsewhere in the piece. the dancers carry him out casket style and set him down in front of her and the pair dances together, but also separated, one last time, something like the thoughts in your head asking, if we had one more moment… one more dance, how would we spend it? Lastly, at the end she returns to the picture frame and the sweater and suddenly she looks up to where the guy first entered. Instinctually the eyes of everyone in the house follow but your heart sinks when you realize nobody is there. So you look back at her and she returns to herself, clutching helplessly to the photo… the last memory. The next performer comes out and asks her if she’s okay. She looks up and says “Im fine” gathers her things and hurries away. You put on a facade and tell people you’re okay when this happens, trying not to break… but in the inside you’ve gone numb and you just want somebody to help. This piece so perfectly embodied everything that comes with grief and I am honored to have seen it.
Calista Robbins 