Outcry and Turning
Program notes:
Outcry: a wailing or howling against what should not be; a call sent out to touch the unspeakable and to change it by marking that which is unbearably wrong with the sign of our grief and rage.
Turning: the movement of becoming something else (a turning leaf); similarly, a process of change in the course of events (the tide is turning); to change direction by shifting momentum away from an obstacle or toward a new goal. An act of creation, especially in the case of the making of something extraordinary (as in turning out great work, or a finely turned phrase). A slow and inexorable rotation of heavenly bodies or circling dancers around a center.
In the face of war, disaster, or death, we often feel helpless--it seems that all we can do is to cry out from our weakness and from our sense of injustice. And yet there is a tremendous power in our outcry. A wail breaks from our lips in our grieving, untangling over time a knot of tightly coiled pain. It not only expresses our loss, but also stands as a form of tangible protest against what cannot or will not be reconciled.
We cry out alone, but we dance together, taking up that fallen sound and turning it into collective motion, transforming space with energy as we move thorugh it. In our turning we gather strength and send it spiralling up and out through our bodies in the hope of redeeming loss or healing what is broken–in the hope of changing direction and restoring a balance that has been destroyed.
EKC