The Stage

My first memory of performing was during middle school. When I was 12 years old, I was casted as The Cowardly Lion in my school’s rendition of “The Wizard of Oz”. Something unlocked in me from that moment on and has haunted me ever since.

There is a tension I have felt with the stage between both wanting to occupy it completely whilst also knowing it as the only vessel for which the parts of myself that were considered “too much” in daily life were accepted. I have come to master that tension with age yet it is one that I have been reflecting on more in this season of life. In my younger years, I often felt out of place, resorting to comedy as a means to obscure the strangeness I felt within my being. I suppose this was the germination of seeing how performance altered perception.

In March, I took part in Immersion 2: Arena by The Skin Deep Collective. This was perhaps the most theatrical, the most moving, the most visceral performance I have done to date. I have admittedly had trouble posting images from this production, not out of lack of want, but because no series of videos or photos seems to hold the enormity of how it felt emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

With each iteration of SDC’s productions, I have grown in my artistry and subsequently, communed with my strangeness. Questioned it, re-evaluated it. Integrated it. I have confronted what it means to be seen on stage, especially through an erotic lens and have been called to ask what parts of myself do I wish to divulge. I have felt something similar in other performances as well, but there was something about Immersion 2: Arena in particular that felt like a shedding. The dramaturgy and chemistry between the artists touched something inside me, and held on with such ferocity that I find myself feeling protective of it.

At my most recent performance for Pax Romana, that hold felt like a blossoming. I became undone in the best way. I saw the audience and the audience saw me. The space between us blurred becoming an amalgamation of sensations that had no beginning or end, only presence.

To the stage…