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The Ultimate Consummation of Our Love --Bang!

7/9/2016

                In a time of explicit death on our televisions and newspapers I want to talk about love. The Actual Dance is a play. “The actual dance” is a metaphor for the ultimate beauty and dignity when one has the opportunity to hold and hug the person they love most as they make a final and natural transition to end-of-life.

                “I now understand that The Actual Dance will be the ultimate consummation of our love,” is the line in the play.

                As tragic and sad it is to lose your lifetime love partner, there is a beauty and dignity associated with the opportunity to hold and ease that transition as imagined in The Actual Dance.

                How opposite is the moment of watching someone you love murdered! It is horrific to imagine sitting next to someone as they are shot! Or watch a video as the police sit on top of your loved one and pull out guns and shoot. Or to know that your life-partner is on the street protecting the public as shots are being fired, and then the phone rings.

                At this moment in time my hope is that those who are touched so intimately and personally can come to know this moment differently. No you did not get to hold your loved one in your arms and sweep across a cloud in beautiful waltz as you inhale their last exhale. They still exist though, inside you and inside your heart and they will forever.

                I have written a short poem about this moment. I call it Bang!   And as hopeful as I like to be in all I write and perform, I could not find a hopeful last line to this poem. Perhaps you can suggest one.

Bang!

Our love so deeply entwined
Bang!
We each are one another
Bang!
An equal half of our whole
Bang!
Then a giant hole explodes
Bang!
And tears us two asunder
Bang!

Samuel A. Simon
(c) 2016

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"Because Love Is a Universal Experience"

7/1/2016

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On June 20th in New York in New York, Chuk Obasi performed The Actual Dance   It is the first time someone other than me performed the show. And while Susan and I attended Chuk's final dress rehearsal, there was nothing like what happened in the theater on that night. It is a humbling experience to watch and see someone put their full expressive and artistic energy into something I wrote that is so personal and so heartfelt.

Chuk is a young, talented actor.   He is more agile and physical than I am. He can both carry a tune, and dance to a beat. God given traits that were not among those that I was blessed with. I have other, different ones.   He told the story both so differently and so much the same. The ideas just dressed us differently, the same ideas though. The same emotions yet coming from a different place.

Chuk has written a blog about his experience and his insights. He notices a couple of the "slight" differences in our back grounds. He then explains why he thinks this "works" -- "because love is a universal experience."   Please do him the honor of reading his words by clicking here.

He received a standing ovation at the end of his performance and those who attended wanted to know when his next performance was because so many in the audience knew someone else who "needed to see the show" as performed by Chuk.    So if you are in New York or know people New York, the next performance is July 12th at 7:00 p.m. A complimentary performance.   RSVP here.

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