Tech Rehearsal

Last night was the Technical Rehearsal at InterMedia Arts for the Take Me Back To Hip Harlem show. Work work work, albeit beautiful, somebody’s gotta do it~~!

Wu Chen, our artist-in-light, set the lighting interplay cues for the dances and the program.
Peter Schimke, master jazz pianist, charted the music so the live improvised jazz will correlate with the choreographed dance.

Some people had to come late, some people had to leave early, there were some last minute suprises but miracle of miracles, everything that HAD to happen did.

Luckily our very beautiful children know to be calm in the middle of a whirlwind@@@

Take Me Back to Hip Harlem! THIS WEEK!

Join us this week for our two performances:

Saturday December 4th at 7:00pm
OR
Sunday December 5th at 3:00pm

You can purchase tickets HERE.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

This week I had the special pleasure of bringing two of my granddaughters and my eldest son to one of our Dancing Heart sessions. I wanted them to see first-hand the joy that the Dancing Heart program brings to our participants.

We planned to do some tap dancing with the elders and, since my granddaughters take tap classes, I thought the folks would enjoy seeing the girls dance along with them.

But how do you get people in wheelchairs to tap dance you may ask? Mary, one of the Kairos volunteers, is a very clever creative artist and she came up with the idea of putting metal glides on pieces of Velcro which we then strap around the participants’ shoes. They tap their toes and the metal glides on a wooden floor sound just like tap shoes! The elders enjoy exercises that involve rhythm and counting and tap dancing is an excellent way to provide that kind of experience. Having them learn a dance routine is a fun way to provide cognitive learning. We danced our way through Tea for Two and several other songs which the participants enjoyed a great deal.

During the water break, my granddaughters did a couple of tap routines which brought big smiles to everyone’s faces. My son played several tunes on the guitar and we all sang along. It was a special joy for me to have my son and grandchildren be a part of the Dancing Heart and share in the joy of bringing happiness to the Dancing Heart participants. These elders, regardless of what their life situation is and what discomfort and pain they may have to endure, are positive and cheerful. They are wonderful role models for the younger generation.
Faith

Grateful

Today I felt showered with the radiance that comes from a grateful heart. At Wilder and Ridges, we created gratitude poetry, taking snippets of heartfelt thankful phrases coming from our elders, weaving them together into a grand tapestry of verbal artistry. I was stunned by the sobriety in which these lovely souls shared their gratitude for life, family, their country, their friends, the present moment. All of them facing the usual challenges that come with an aging body, it was so encouraging to see the ease with which they were able to connect with their heart and what truly mattered. I feel so empowered by their courage and passion to embrace their lives and choose a grateful heart. I am thankful for you, elders.
Nancy

Beautiful Rehearsal

Yesterday, just two weeks before opening night of the ‘Take Me Back to Hip Harlem’ show, Kairos Dance Theatre had a beautiful 4 hour long rehearsal
which included generous and patient coaching and critiquing from Candace Barrett, lead teaching artist from the Guthrie.

Her keen eye and heartful responses put a heightened coherence and sparkle in our work.

This will be a very interesting show. 7pm December 4th & 3pm December 5th at Intermedia Arts.

Peter

UNDER THE BIG TENT

Six weeks ago Carla and Peter traveled with folks from The Dancing Heart group at Ebenezer Ridges Care Center to the Shrine circus at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. One of the highlights of that adventure was being greeted at the front door by real live clowns. After six weekly sessions of working on the circus theme, this week we presented The Ridges Dancing Heart Flying Cloud Circus to an audience of 80+ fellow residents where Beverly was officially inducted as a new clown.

A Baby Elephant walk by Ridges’ in-house day care kids under our own Big Top helped open the show.

A shadow puppet lion tamer tamed a fierce beast til he danced like a kitten.

Romeo the dancing dog helped us to share the joy of dance and unleash its power to nurture and to heal.

The Kairos Dancing Heart big top was a thrill for young and old, combining Creative Aging, Arts In Health Care, and Intergenerational Dance under one big tent~~~!

Peter

Ida’s 101st Birthday Party & Give to the MAX!

As you know, last week we had our weekly rehearsal with Ida!
We danced, discussed life in NY, and talked about our upcoming performances of “Take Me Back to Hip Harlem”!
We talked with Ida about her 101st birthday party we will be celebrating on December 4th after the performance. She was very excited!

Discussing Ida’s 101st Birthday celebration!

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If you would like to support moments like this and performances like our upcoming ones in December…Today is the PERFECT DAY to do so!!
It is GIVE to the MAX Day! GiveMN.org is hosting an event that raised over $14,000,000 for MN Charities & NonProfits!

If you’d like to contribute to our upcoming performance and Ida’s 101st Birthday click here!

If you’d like to give to The Dancing Heart program in which each week we are surprised and delighted by the vital engagement of each participant through dance, music and story… click here

Thank you for your ongoing support and contributions to Kairos Dance Theatre.

We can’t express how grateful we are for your encouragement.

Warmly,

Kairos Dance Theatre

Who Knew What We Could Do

One of the big joys of working in Kairos Dancing Heart sessions is the sense of exploration and discovery that plays out on a daily basis with folks who might have thought they’d left that kind of thing behind them.

Here Nancy and Rose find some safe stable shared weight while residents exercise mirror neurons and Carla and Maria are amazed~~~!

Peter

Take Me Back to Hip Harlem rehearsal

We are just three weeks away from our concert series at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis on December 4 and 5 featuring centenarian, Ida Arbeit and Mr. Smooth, Irv Williams on sax with his Quartet.

Rehearsals are in full swing. On Friday we were at Ida’s Assisted Living site, rehearsing in our dance space, the TV room.

Ida, who is watching a run-through of the piece, “Body and Soul,” says, “you look like you are in a Munch painting, about to scream.” A bit blunt, but totally right on. We listened to her critique, softened the arm reaches, which gave the movement a more lush quality. Who says you can’t make valuable contributions when you are more than 100 years?
Maria

O Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

This week we had a special guest at one of our adult day care centers. Maria brought her wonderful dog, Romeo, to a Dancing Heart session. It was perfect timing because we had two new participants that day and Romeo’s presence made a tremendous difference in their comfort level in a new setting. Martha, one of the new participants, kept commenting every time Romeo did something cute. “See how he wags his tail. That means he’s happy. I think he’s smiling at me”.

Everyone had an opportunity to pat him, some of course were more interested in doing that than others, but nearly everyone loved having this special visitor. Especially when Romeo decided he wanted to dance, too, and got up on his hind legs while Maria held his front paws and off they went, dancing to the music!

The Dancing Heart program has many components to stimulate and encourage movement and cognitive thinking and Romeo is one very important part of how we help the participants to create community, be vitally engaged and to give them a sense of well-being!

Faith