The Actual Dance - a one-man play and story that explores what love really means
  • Home
  • About
    • Company >
      • Sam Simon
      • Chuk Obasi
    • Creative Statement
    • Our Story
    • Performance History
    • Audience Praise
    • Awards
    • Book The Actual Dance
  • Book
    • Book Talk Praise
  • Calendar
  • Media
    • In The News
    • Photos
    • Performance Videos
  • Blog & More
    • Blog
    • Poetry
    • Music
    • Videos
  • Gift Shop
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Dementia Man

Our Essence Becomes Entwined

2/9/2018

Comments

 
Picture
PictureRabbi Laszlo Berkowits
 
          The Actual Dance describes a love relationship that is so deep that the spiritual essence of two people merge so that they make the other complete.  “I am the other half of that which makes Susan and me complete.”    I have written a poem that describes it as being “an equal half of the other.”

         Today, February 9th, 2018, as I am prepare to host a dinner celebration of the 90th Birthday of Rabbi Laszlo Berkowits I am brought to consider once again the myriad shapes and forms of love between people.   I have known Rabbi Berkowits for 45 years.  In that time, and especially the last twenty years, we have spent enormous amounts of time with each other in highly intimate situations.  His first trip back to Auschwitz where as a 16-year-old boy he spent not quite a year.  His first trip back to Camp Woebbelin in Germany where he was liberated May 2, 1945 by the 82nd Airborne.  Then four more times back to Woebbelin.  Visits together to the Berlin Memorial to the Holocaust and the Jewish museum in Berlin.  

          There were other times with other intimate, incredible moments of awe and desperation and celebration and joy.  He has taught me to seek the joy of each moment of each day of life.

             And now, as I get ready for this fabulous evening of celebration in deep introspection, I think I understand something new about love and life.   My perfect love with my wife, Susan, of 51 years that has taught me so much is unique and not exclusive.   What I realize today on the 90th Birthday of Laszlo Berkowits is that we as human beings connect with others similarly; interactions and shared experiences so deep that the space between us disappears and we become connected as deeply and as completely as if we were physical one.  We are spiritually one.  This is possible because love is infinite and to be found and discovered between two people through different and complex interactions.   

                So here are a few links that will introduce you to Rabbi Laszlo Berkowits, my friend who I have come to love and with whom I am in some ways one.  Let's start with his book:  The Boy Who Lost his Birthday, here  And some wonderful interviews with him here and here and here.

                  Are there people in your lives that you love in this deep, intimate way?  Tell us about them.

Comments

NATIONAL FAMILY CAREGIVERS MONTH 2017

11/23/2017

Comments

 
   What better day than Thanksgiving to acknowledge the important role of the Family Caregivers.  November is National Family Caregivers Month.  You can read the Presidential Proclamation right here:
       
     When I think of National Family Caregivers Month I think of my friend Greg Johnson, who through his inspired work in supporting international family caregivers has been a major factor in my own understanding of that role and has inspired me to continue my own passion for mission of The Actual Dance:  To enable as many people as possible to experience the show.
       
     On today, Thanksgiving 2017, I want to express my gratitude to all those are, have been or will be family caregivers.    It is a task of the heart – and defines what love really means.  Among the many things that Greg has taught me is that The Actual Dance is, among many things, a different face of the Family Caregiver.   

    I have since come to understand the role of Caregiver to someone you love as a complex and multi-layered relationship.   As so many things for which we are thankful, being able to be a caregiver to someone you love is one of them, even though we certainly would have preferred otherwise:  That is, the most important often difficult things in life require unknown capacities within ourselves to do the unthinkable.    

     The truth for me and the point of The Actual Dance is that care giving for someone you love is indeed what love really means.

   Please enjoy the following resources provided by Greg on the many roles in Family Caregivers:

You Are Not Alone Series:

TALKS WITH GREG: Conversations in Caregiving
​
Comments

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Blog: Day 24 B'shert

10/24/2017

Comments

 
Picture
The Actual Dance as a play presents the events of the year 2000 from my point of view as the spouse of the woman going through breast cancer.  Now, seventeen years later, it is apparent that I did not fully understand how deeply the experience impacted me.  It took me 12 years to write the story, so to speak, and the last nearly 5 years I have been telling it through performances of the play.  Every October I blog daily to help in raising awareness and to share elements of the story that I hope are of value to those who read these blogs. (All quoted lines are text from the play.)

Day 24:  B’Shert “I remember the first time I ever noticed Susan. We hadn’t met yet.” 

A good time to take a break from the unfolding story of me getting ready to be with Susan in what seems like a story without a good ending to talk a little bit about “us”
​
In the play I tell the story of how Susan and I noticed each other at a B’nai B’rith Youth Organization convention in 1961 in Texarkana, Texas.  We just made googly-eyes at each other but never talked.  Then three years later Susan ends-up going to College in El Paso at Texas Western College and I am still living at home and I am going to Texas Western.

It turns out that Susan starts dating a guy named Steve and I a girl named Jane.  On a “double date” over to Juarez one night probably in 1964 we end up switching --- Jane is in the front seat with Steve and Susan in the back seat with me on the way back from Juarez.

In the play I say: “It didn’t take us very long to fall in love” and then “In 1965 we decided to we wanted to get married.”   

As I sit back and reflect on what is now a journey of 53 years since that first date, I believe that some things are in fact destined to happen.  Some force outside of what we as humans can fully understand can bring people together for a purpose. The Yiddish phrase is “B’shert”  Meant to be. 

I do think that Susan and Sam were meant-to-be and that the unfolding story of our lives is a sacred journey. 

Stat of the Day: There are about 6,200 wedding a day in the United States with the average age of the bride being 25.3 years and the average age of the groom being 26.9 years. Source

Task of the Day:  Say “I love you” to your spouse.   “I love you simply awakens the US in you and me.”  

Resource of the Day: Okay—I have given this link before – it isn’t quite what I’m talking about and yet it will make your day. What Love Really Means by JJ Heller.

The Actual Dance:  Performances.   Donate.
Comments

WHAT LOVE DOESN'T REALLY MEAN

9/11/2017

Comments

 
 
The Actual Dance is a love story.   I like to say it is about “what love really means.”   In the play, there is this line: “At 20 years old I don’t think we understood what love really meant.”   The reference is to Susan Simon, my wife of now 51 years, and me when we got married in 1966.  We of course thought we were in love, but what really did two twenty-year old kids know about love?

What I have come to understand is that love is a process made up of intimate, existential moments together.   Two people discovering an eternal bond that connects not mind but soul.

This comes up because of an opinion piece in the Sunday, September 10th, New York Times titled: “How to Fix the Person You Love,” by Eli J. Finkel.   It turns out that this is preview (marketing) piece for a forthcoming book titled: “The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work.”

Let’s start with the fatal flaw in the book.  It is impossible for the authors to know how the “Beset Marriages Work” because we – Susan and I – were not interviewed.

Second, and more seriously, judged by the opinion-piece, the measure applied to “Best Marriages” has not thing to do with love, but rather the external-relationship between two people.  The idea the authors seem to wrestle with is can you live with what I will call a “life coach.”   Or in the author’s words: “…. some marriages can do it all. . .. [A]ffectionate partners can indeed play a critical role in determining each other’s success in reach their goals.”  

What does this mean?  Hard to know exactly without reading the entire book, but the hint is pretty clear: “[R]eceiving such support can be brutal.”  

Perhaps the real cue here is the reference to “affectionate partners” to describe the two people in a marital relationship.  I sort of get their point and perspective.  The external process of supporting and “pushing” a spouse to be the best they can be at their chosen vocation can be brutal.   

I however don’t think that has anything to do with love.   I prefer Jacob Needleman’s approach in his book: “The Wisdom of Love: Toward a Shared Inner Life.”    I have written about this before. Needleman describes marriage not as a living arrangement of “affectionate partners” but instead is of a fabric of connection between two souls on a single journey together.   Rather as a quality of connectiveness that is at a spiritual level not readily understood or experienced except upon continued commitment to a journey and the relationship.

The Actual Dance is a case study in that discovery, in that journey.  The “brutality” of this journey isn’t getting unbearable pressure from one’s partner to be the “best we can be.”  The brutality is in achieving the state of near perfect empathy.   Needleman says it this way: “We fail to realize that in certain rare moments – for example where we come face to face with death – we touch a completely unknown capacity of love within us.”

To be in love, he argues, and I do paraphrase, is to be in relationship with a person to be capable of such love in any situation in life.  That is: “To be toward another person in a way that supports (their) struggle is the full meaning of … love.”   “To be in this way toward the man or woman with whom we are sharing our life is to approach a transcendent purpose with the sometimes wondrous and sometimes agonizing round of joy and sorrow that makes up all of our lives together no matter how they may be judged according to the standards of society.”

And so, in The Actual Dance as I journey toward that anticipated moment of Susan’s last breath, I begin to understand:

“I am the other half of that which makes us, Susan and me, complete.  When else in our lives is it more important to be whole than when our body is badly broken.” 
​
What love then “really means” in my book is that we become “an equal half” of a single whole – the relationship itself.  We are one.  What it doesn’t mean? It doesn’t mean me berating her (or vice versa) to be the best whatever we can be in the rough and tumble life a dog-eat-dog, race to the top of anything.  Perhaps I overreact to the example chosen by Eli J. Finkel for his New York Times piece:  The relationship between Katinka Hosszu and Shane Tusup, where Tusup becomes her Olympic coach and trains her to gold medals.  That is NOT what love really means, doing that and staying married may be a fete, but it isn’t the meaning of love. 
Comments

What I Need to Know

1/13/2017

Comments

 

The Actual Dance is a love story.   It is about the discovery of what love really means.   It starts in the middle – in our 33rd year of marriage.   The real beginning is when “I first notice Susan.  We had not met yet.”  It was when we were 16 years old.

Meeting someone and eyeballing them in that “16 year old boy sort of way,” getting married and staying that way for 33 years was both the hard part and the easy part.  Anyone who has been married a very long time knows that the path is not always downhill.  It is often uphill and around blind curves.  By 33 though it is pretty much an integral way of life.

So when in our 33rd year of marriage Susan was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer that spread to her lymph nodes, I was confronted with the prospect of losing her.   What I needed to know, then, was “how am I going to do this?”

I turned first to the Rabbi of our Temple.   This encounter is a seminal moment in my existential “dance” and is a featured scene in The Actual Dance.  It was a meeting destined to go wrong.  Not a carefully planned counseling session set up through the office manager; but instead I show up at the Temple on a Tuesday night at 9:30 because it is “committee night” and I expect the Rabbi to be there.  As it turns out, I run into the Rabbi in the hallway – “Oh, Hi Sam?”  An unspoken, “what are you doing here?”

I clamor into the Rabbi’s office exclaiming I need to talk and the Rabbi is packing up to go home.   I write this back-story to explain the “disconnect.”  I tell the Rabbi “I need to talk about Susan.” And in the moment the Rabbi expresses empathy: “Oh, you are sad that Susan won’t see the grandkids grow up.”

Sounds horribly wrong, right?  Well 13 years after the fact that is how I have been treating that incident. Thanks however to the distance and perspective offered by the performance of The Actual Dance by Chuk Obasi, I can see that what happened in that room is arguably much different than I remember it.   I respond in the play with internal anger: “NO NO IT IS NONE OF THAT, I scream silently.”  Is the line.  Then I say: “What I need to know is how am I going to do this.  How am I going to dance the last dance with Susan?”

Two points.  First, this IS the question that every lover, spouse, caregiver has when faced with being with the person they love most in the world as they take their last breath.  Second, it isn’t obvious.   It is the question in retrospect, but not in the moment.   I now realize that back in the year 2000 as this was happening I did NOT really know what I needed.  Empathy might have been in.  Just an ear to listen; or maybe a shoulder to cry on.     

The truth is I didn’t know what I needed to know until I needed to know it.   This “aha moment” is a reminder of how deeply personal the ritual of this “dance” is and that the unfolding of it in real-time for anyone is confusing.   My portrayal of the Rabbi scene in the show is in some ways deeply unfair to the Rabbi.  I perform it as if the Rabbi made a stupid mistake; instead of the gift of simply being there for me and allowing me to find out “What I need to know.”   

Comments

Welcome to October Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- Day 28

10/28/2015

Comments

 
Picture
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.   The Actual Dance is about many different things.  It is about breast cancer. It is also about love.  It is also about relationships.   It is also about spirituality and what life really is.   It is about a lot of things. 

In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play.  (All quoted lines are text from the play.)
 
Day 28   What Love Really Means. 
 I finally understood with just a few words from the psychiatrist I hadn’t seen in maybe 20 years that The Actual Dance was going to be the ultimate consummation of our – Susan and My -- love.  “His words have a dramatic effect on me.”   Yes, the prospect of losing the love of your life is terrifying.  “I … feared it as tragic and devastating.”   Instead, with just two words “it’s beautiful” my heart and soul waken to what love really means.   The privilege and honor of holding in my arms the person whose essence and soul I share as she leaves this world and she does so sensing and knowing that she is loved.  Earlier in the show I talk about how Susan and I met (noticing each other first in 1962) and in 1965 deciding to get married.  “I wonder if two 20 year olds really understood what love meant,” is my line.  On reflection of course the answer is no, they could not.  It has taken me nearly 50 years to understand that what love really means.  It means knowing the “beauty and dignity” inherent in being with the person you love most in the world as they take their last breath.  When circumstances do not allow us to be physically present at that time, when someone or something else takes that life away or we are far away, The Actual Dance still takes place, just in different ways and different forms.  I do believe that the love inside of you not only goes with you, it also goes with the one we love.

Stat of the Day: Men get breast cancer too.   About 2,350 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in men in 2015. A man’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is about 1 in 1,000.

Task of the Day:  Say “I love you” to the person(s) you love most in the world at least three times today and every day:  In the morning, in the evening and at bed time.

Resource of the Day:  I found a song about “What Love Really Means” Check it out I enjoyed it and I think you will too.


Comments

Welcome to October Breast Cancer Awareness Month --- Day 29

10/29/2014

Comments

 
Picture
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.   The Actual Dance is, among many different things, about breast cancer. It is also about love.  It is also about relationships.   It is also about spirituality and what life really is.   It is about a lot of things. 

In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play.  (All quoted lines are text from the play.)
 
Day 29   What Love Really Means.   I finally understood with just a few words from the psychiatrist I had not seen in maybe 15 years that The Actual Dance was going to be the ultimate consummation of our – Susan and my -- love.  “His words have a dramatic effect on me.”   Yes, the prospect of losing the love of your life is scary.  “I … feared it as tragic and devastating.”   Instead, with just two words -- “it’s beautiful” -- my heart and soul waken to what love really means.   The privilege and honor of holding in my metaphorical arms the person whose essence and soul I share as they leave this world and do so sensing and knowing that they are loved.  Earlier in the show I talk about how Susan and I met (noticing each other first in 1962) and in 1965 deciding to get married.  “I wonder if two 20 year olds really understood what love meant,” is my line.  On reflection of course the answer is no, they could not.  It has taken me nearly 50 years to understand  what love really means.  It means knowing the “beauty and dignity” inherent in being with the person you love most in the world as they take their last breath.  When circumstances do not allow us to be physically present at that time, when someone or something else takes that life away or we are far away, The Dance takes place in different ways and different forms.  I do believe that the love inside of you not only goes with you, it also goes with the one we love.

Stat of the Day: Men get breast cancer too, but only 1% of breast cancer is in men.  The rate has grown since 1975 from 1 per 100,000 to 1.2 per 100,000.  Growth is attributed mainly to early detection.

Task of the Day:  Say I love you to the person(s) you love most in the world at least three times today and every day:  In the morning, in the evening and at bed time.

Resource of the Day:  I found a song about “What Love Really Means” Check it out I enjoyed it and I think you will too.


Comments

    Sam Simon

    Samuel A. Simon is the playwright and performer of The Actual Dance. 

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    October 1909

    Categories

    All
    1945
    1st Stage
    2001
    2017
    49th Wedding Anniversary
    4thAngel
    4th Of July
    50th Anniversary
    50th Wedding Anniverary
    50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
    51st Anniversary
    5th Anniversary
    71 Years Old
    82d Airborne
    90th Birthday
    9/11
    AARP
    Abortion
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    Abraham Lincoln
    Age Matters
    A Gift
    Alexa
    ALS
    Alzheimers
    Amazing Grace
    American Cancer Institute
    American Cancer Scoiet
    American Cancer Society
    American Psychosocial Oncology Society
    American Society Of Clincal Oncology
    American Society Of Clinical Oncology
    American University
    Amy Oestreicher
    ANDTheater Company
    Angels In Our Lives
    Anita Little
    Anticipatory Grief
    An Unreasonable Man
    APOS
    April Fools Day
    APSO
    Ari Roth
    Aristotle
    Arizona
    Army JAG School
    Artistic New Directions
    Arts Midwesst
    Arts Producer
    Ashkenazi
    Asscoiation For Jewish Theater
    Attitudinal Healing International
    Auschwitz
    Australia
    Avon39
    Avon39 Walk To End Breast Cancer
    Avon Walk For Breast Cancer
    Back To The Future
    Bahert
    Ballroom
    Bang!
    Bashert
    Bat Mitzvah
    Bat Mizvah
    Baton Rouge
    BBYO
    Beast-cancer-awareness
    Beautiful
    Becky Olson
    Become A Producer
    Before-the-ball-falls
    Being Alone
    Belgium
    Beliefnet
    Bema
    Bertha Kalmans
    Beverly Merz
    Bikkur Holim
    Bikur Cholim
    Bing
    Birthday
    Black Man Portraying A White Man
    Black & White
    Blame
    Blonder
    B'nai Brith
    B'nai Brith Youth
    Bobby Kashif Cox
    Bob Vaughn
    Boca Raton
    Bolero
    Boobs
    Border Children
    BRAC1
    BRAC2
    Brainy Quotes
    Brama Kumaris
    BRCA
    BRCA2
    Breast And Sex
    Breast Cancer
    Breast Cancer And Young Women
    Breast Cancer Awareness
    Breast Cancer Awareness Month
    Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2017
    Breast CancerAwareness Month 2018
    Breast Cancer Awreness
    Breast Cancer Blogs
    Breast Cancer Buddy
    Breast Cancer Cure
    Breast Cancer Diagnosis
    Breast Cancer Husband
    Breast Cancer Metastisis
    Breast Cancer Navigator
    Breastcancer.org
    Breast Cancer Quotes
    Breast Cancer Rates
    Breast Cancer Research
    Breast Cancer Research Budget
    Breast Cancer Rituals
    Breast Cancer Survival
    Breast Cancer To Broadway
    Breast Cancer Wareness
    Breast Care Navigator
    Breast Density
    Breast-exam
    Breast-health-navigator
    Breast-imaging
    Breast-navigator
    Breast Oncologist
    Breast Radiologist
    Breasts
    Breasts And Sex
    Breast Self Examination
    Breat Cancer Awareness
    Breath
    Brides
    Bring Your Brave
    Brooklyn
    Brownsville
    B'shert
    California Department Of Health Services
    Canada's Euthenasia
    Cancer
    Cancer And Divorce
    Cancer Center
    Cancer Charities
    Cancer Counseling
    Cancer Doctor
    Cancer Help Line
    Cancer Hope Network
    Cancer-mentor
    Cancer-support-community
    Cancer-survivor
    Care For The Family Caregiver
    Caregiver
    Care Giver
    Care Giver Action Network
    Caregiver Action Network
    Caregiver Journals
    Caregiver Moments
    Care Givers
    Caregivine
    Caregiving
    Caregvier
    Carol Fox Prescott
    Carol Goldstein
    Carol Hexner
    Catholic Chaplains
    Caught It Early
    CDC
    Cecil
    Cecil The Lion
    Cedric Rucker
    Celebrity Survivors
    Center For Disease Control
    Center For The Study Of Responsive Law
    Center Stage Theater
    Chabad
    Charity Navigator
    Charles Atlas
    Charleston
    Chemistry
    Christian Grace
    Christmas
    Chuk Obasi
    Civil Rights Movement
    Claire Nader
    Clara Blonder Simon
    Cleveland Clinic
    CNN
    Coco
    Collegiate Church
    Collegiate Churches Of New York
    Columbine
    Coming And Going
    Communicating Bad News
    Conversations In Caregiving
    Crying
    C-Section
    CSRL
    Cupid
    Daily Jewish Forward
    Dallas
    Dancing Alone
    Dancing With Martin
    David Brooks
    David Goldstein
    DCJCC
    D-Day
    Death
    Death Bed Visitations
    Death Cafes
    Deaths From Breast Cancer
    Death With Dignity
    Deb Artz
    Debbie Friedman
    Declaration-of-independence
    Dense-breast
    Densebreastinfoorg
    Depression-and-breast-cancer
    Detourist
    Diabetes
    Diabetic
    Diagnosis
    Diane Ackerman
    Dignity
    Divine
    Divorce
    DNA
    Doctor Awareness
    Dog
    Domestic Violence
    Donald K Ross
    Donate Now
    Donation
    Dorothy
    Double Mastectomy
    Dr
    Dramturg
    Dr. Anne Todd Hodgdon
    Dr. Donna Hicks
    Dr. Elizabeth Morris
    Dr. Groopman
    Dr. Happy
    Dr. Jennifer Harvey
    Dr. W David Hankins
    Dumb Luck
    Dying
    Dying From Breast Cancer
    Dying Well
    Each And Equal Half Of The Other
    Easter
    Edinburgh Fringe Festival
    Eli J Finkel
    Eli Zollar
    Eli Zoller
    El Paso
    EmblemHealth
    Emily Faith Simon
    End Of Life And Humor
    Eric-cooper
    Eric-garner
    Erich-segal
    Estrogen-receptor-negative
    Eternity
    Etrogen-receptor-positive
    Eugene-fox
    Euthenasia
    Evelyn Fox
    Evelyn Fox Simon
    Everett C. Parker
    Everett Parker
    Every Woman Counts
    Evil Witch
    Exceptional Survivors Of Incurable Cancer
    Exercise
    Exercise And Breast Cancer
    Existential Decision Making
    Existential Saftey Zones
    Expialidocious
    Facetime
    Fairness Doctrine
    Faith
    Falls-church
    Family
    Family-caregiver
    Family-care-giver-alliance
    #FamilyCaregiversMonth
    Family Caregivers Month
    Family-caregiving
    Family Caregiving Alliance
    Famiy Caregiver
    Fatal Flaw
    Fierce Conversations
    Florida Shooting
    Frank Baum
    Fred Johnson
    Freedom Of Expression
    Frequency Of Sex
    Friday The 13th
    Frieda Alfman
    Frieda AlfmanSimon
    Frieda Alfman Simon
    Frieda Simon
    Fringe Festival
    Frozen Section
    Gabrielle Maisels
    Gary Austin
    Gary Austin Dies
    Gary Austin Workshops
    Gary Chapman
    Gay
    Gay Pride
    Generations Yet To Come
    Getting Cancer Diagnosis
    Ghost
    Ghosts
    Ghost The Movie
    Gilad Shaar
    Gildas Club
    Ginny Goldberg
    GLBT
    God
    God In Search Of Man
    Goethe Gymnasium
    Going Dark
    Golden Anniversary
    Good Men Project
    Good Witch
    Grace
    Grace Rebecca Mann
    Gracie
    Grand Daughter
    Greg Johnson
    Gregory Johnson
    Gregory L Johnson
    Grief
    Grooms
    Gutless And Grateful
    Hallow
    Hallucinations
    Happy-ending
    Hardest-of-them-all
    Harriet-rae-simon
    Healing-harmonies
    Health Care Chaplaincy Network
    Health Care Workers
    Healthfinder.gov
    Healthline
    Health Vault
    Heart Of Caregiving
    Heart Of The Universe
    Hebrew Union College
    Her2Neu
    High School Shooting
    Hollow
    Hollow!
    Holocaust
    Hope Advanced Veterinary Center
    Hospice
    Hospice Of The Chesapeake
    Hospital Waiting Room
    Houston
    How Doctors Think
    How Do I Do This?
    Hudson Valley Health Allliance
    Huffington Post
    Husband
    Husbands And Breast Cancer
    I AndThou
    I And Thou
    ICare
    Independence
    Independence Day
    Independent Living
    Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation
    Indiegogo
    IndyFringe
    In Memoriam
    INOVA
    INOVA Fairfax
    INOVA Fairfax Hospital
    Inspiring Quotes
    International Festival Of Music And Arts
    Interracial Marraige
    Intersections
    Intersections International
    Interview
    Intimacy
    Intimate Conversations
    Intimate Relationships
    Israel
    Is That Them Playing?
    It
    ITeam
    I &Thou
    It's Not Yet Dark
    Jackie Jules
    Jacob Needleman
    Jeanine Walton
    Jeffery-sweet
    Jeffrey Sweet
    Jerome Goopman
    Jerome Groopman
    Jessie-roberts
    Jewish
    Jewish-grace
    Jewish-ministry
    Jewish-ritual
    Jihad
    Jim-scott
    JJ Heller
    Joan Claybrook
    Joe Simon
    John Kilgore Sound
    John Legend
    John Shields
    Jon Roberts
    Joseph Jaworski
    Journaling
    Julian Barnes
    Julie Myerson
    July 18
    Justice
    Justin Smith
    Kabbalat Shabbat
    Kate Hanley
    Kate Holland
    Ken Deutsch
    Ken Goldberg
    Kenita Earl
    Kennedy
    Know:BRAC
    Know:BRCA
    Labor Day
    Labryinth
    Larry Rosen
    Last Words
    Las Vegas
    Levels Of Life
    L. Frank Baum
    Life
    Life After Death
    Life Coach
    Life Expectancy Breast Cancer
    Lives Matter
    Living With Breast Cancer
    Lloyd Kikoler
    Lora Lee Gayer
    Loreena McKennitt
    Loss
    Love
    Love And Joy
    Love And Marriage
    Love And Violence
    Love-contest
    Lovemydetour
    Love Really Means
    Love-story
    Lump
    Lump-on-breast
    Lunch Cancer
    Lymph Node Negative
    Lymph Node Positive
    Lymph Nodes
    Lynn Fielder
    Lypmh Node
    Magic Words
    Maj-gen-ret-eugene-fox
    Male Breast Cancer
    Male Caregiver
    Mammograms Save Lives
    Mammography
    Mandalay Hotel
    Marble Collegiate Church
    Marcus Simon
    Marion Simon Garmel
    Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
    Mark Green
    Marriage
    Married
    Martin Buber
    Martin-luther-king
    Martin-luther-king-jr
    Mass-ave
    Mass-murder
    Mass-shooting
    Mastectomy
    Matectomy
    Maya-angelou
    Mayo Clinic
    MBC
    McLean Animal Hospital
    Md-anderson
    Medical-directive
    Meditation
    Melissa Mann
    Memorial Day
    Memorial Sloan Kettering
    Memorial Stone
    Memories
    Memory
    Men-against-breast-cancer
    Men And Breasts
    Metastatic Breast Cancer
    Michael Gellman
    Midtown International Thater Festival
    Milt Orkin
    Mindfillness
    Mindfulness
    Ministry
    Minnestoa
    Misdagnosis
    Misheberach
    Mitf
    Mitzvah
    Molecular Breast Imaging
    Mothers Day
    Muhammad Abu Khdeir
    Muhammid Ali
    Murder
    Music
    Music And Healing
    Music Heals
    Myriad
    My Wife's Breast
    Nader's Raiders
    Naftali Fraenkel
    Nancy Kane
    Nancy Vaughn
    National Alliance For Caregivers
    National Alliance For Caregiving
    National Breast Cancer Coalition
    National Cancer Institute
    National Center On Caregiving
    National Citizens Committee For Broadcasitin
    National Family Caregiver Month
    National Family Caregiver Month 2018
    National Family Caregivers Month
    National Institute On Aging
    NATIONAL OPERA CENTER
    National Poetry Month
    National Story Telling Network
    National Story Telling Netwrok
    NC
    NCI Cancer Center
    NetofCare
    New Car
    New Orleans
    Newtown
    New Year
    New Years
    New Year's Day 2016
    New Year's Eve
    New York Police
    New York Theological
    New York Time
    Nicholas Johnson
    Nina Shapiro-Perl
    Nine-eleven
    No One Said It Would Be Easy
    North Korea
    Nurse
    Nurses
    NYTS
    OBE
    Ocacroke Island
    October
    October 25
    October Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
    Older Americans Month
    Omar Marteen
    Oncologist
    Oncology Nurse
    Oncology Nurses
    One Hundred Names For Love
    On The Breath
    Orlando
    "Our Story"
    Our Story
    Outliving Your Implants
    Out Of Body
    Out Of Body Experience
    Parkland FLorida
    Passover
    Pastoral Care
    Patient Advocate
    Patient Navigator
    Paul Kalanithi
    Pensacola
    Peter Flier
    Peter Kater
    Philando Castile
    Picking A Cancer Doctor
    Pink-movement
    Pink-ribbon
    Pirg
    Planned-parenthood
    Plus-delta
    Plus-deltaced8fed0d3
    Poet
    Poetry
    Post-mastectomy
    Post-mastectomy Blues
    POST TRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROME
    Presence
    President Obama
    Producer
    Producers Inc.
    Psychiatrist
    Psychology Today
    PTSD
    Pulmonary Embolism
    Putting Dog To Sleep
    Quote From Belief Net
    Rabbi
    Rabbi Aaron Panken
    Rabbi Counseling
    Rabbie Laszlo Berkowits
    Rabbi Laszlo Berkowtis
    Rabbi Richard Sternberger
    Rabbi Shais Tabu
    Rachael Simon
    Rachael Simon Proper
    Rachel Goldstein Simon
    Rachel Simon
    Racism
    Radical Amazement
    Radiologist
    Raising Kids In Interracial Family
    Ralph Nader
    Recurrance Of Breast Cancer
    Reform Jewish Movement
    Retreat Centers
    Robert Chase
    Robert F Kennedy
    Robert Vaughn
    Robiin Williams
    Rob Porter
    Rose Nader
    Ruben Edelstein
    Sacred Places
    Sacred Promise
    Sacred Time
    Sad News
    Sam Alfman
    Same Sex Marriage
    Sam Simon
    San Bernardino
    Sandra Bland
    Santa Barbara
    Save A Life Save The Universe
    Save The Tatas
    SBI
    Scarecrow
    Schwerin
    Science Magazine
    Script Your Future
    Seeing Ghosts
    Seer
    Selfish
    Senior Citizens
    Separation
    September 11
    Serendipity
    Seventy Years Old
    Sex
    Sex And Breast
    Sex And Breasts
    Sexy At 70
    Sexy At Seventy
    Shafteek Nader
    Shalem
    Shamans-healing
    Sharasheret
    Sharsheret
    Shastro
    Shatro
    Shloshim
    Shofar
    Shuan-sheehan
    Sidney Simon
    Simon Fitzmaurice
    Skype
    Snatam Kauer
    Snatam Kaur
    Sntam Kaur
    Society Of Breast Imaging
    Soldier
    Solo Show
    Song Of Solomon
    Song Of Songs
    Sony Pictures
    Soul
    Spirits
    Sport-hunting
    Stage 3
    Stage 3 Breast Cancer
    Stage 4
    Stage Buddy
    Stage III Breast Cancer
    Staging
    Story Telling
    Suicide
    Supernatural
    Support The Actual Dance
    Survivor Guilt
    Susan Meryl Kalmans
    Susan's Birthday
    Susan Simon
    Susan Simon Birthday
    Syed Rizwan Farook
    Syliva Sue Simon Pickens Owens
    Synchronicity: The Inner Path To Leadership
    Talking
    Talking To Someone
    Talks With Greg:
    Tall Oaks At Reston
    Tango
    Tanya Marie Luhrmann
    Tashfeen Malik
    Tatas
    Tax Deductible Contribution
    Ted Turner
    Teen Weddings
    Temple
    Temple Mt. Sinai
    Temple Rodef Shalom
    Terrorism
    Texarkana
    Texas
    Texas Western
    Texas Wetern
    Thanksgiving
    Thanksgiving 2016
    The 5Love Languages
    The Actual Dance
    The Acutal Dance
    The All-or-Nothing Marriage
    The American Cancer Society
    The AmericanPsychoscoial Oncology Societ
    The American Psychosocial Oncology Societ
    Theatre Row
    The Ballroom
    The Battle We Didn't Chose
    The Boy Who Lost His Birthday
    The Community Voices Project
    The Conversation
    The Dash Poem
    "The Fuck It Adjustment"
    The Groundlings
    The Healing Power Of Touch
    The Healing Story Alliance
    The Interview
    The Last Dance
    The-law-of-attraction
    The-meaning-of-life
    The-movie
    The-opposite
    The-public-interest-research-group
    Theraputic Touch
    The-secret
    The-shape
    The-shape-of-grief
    The-shape-of-loss
    The-smell-of-loss
    The Talk
    The Wisdom Of Love
    The Wizard
    The Wizard Of Oz
    Thinking Pink Songs For Breast Cancer Awareness
    Thomas Mann
    Tin Man
    Tomaxafin
    Tomb Of The Unknowns
    Tom Stanton
    Torah
    Toto
    Touched By An Angel
    Toyota
    Toyota 4Runner
    Tragedy
    Trayvon Martin
    Tree House Theater
    Triple Negative
    Tuberculosis
    Unchained-melody
    Unexpected-cancer-moments
    United-solo
    United-states-military-academy
    University-of-mary-washington
    University-of-virginia-school-of-medicine
    Unlikely-survivor
    Unsafe-at-any-speed
    Us
    USA Today
    USMA
    UTEP
    Valentine's Day
    Valentines Day 2017
    Valentnie
    Veteran
    Veternarian
    Virginia House Of Delegates
    Visiting The Sick
    Voices Of Survivors
    Waller County
    Walter Palmer
    Waltz
    Washington Post
    Watchful Waiting
    Wearing Pink
    Wedding Anniverary
    Weddings Each Year
    Well Spouse Association
    Wenndy MacKenzie
    West Point
    West Point Jewish Chapel
    What Do Doctors Really Think
    What Does Love Really Mean
    "What Love Really Means"
    What Love Really Means
    What Time Has To Offer
    When Breath Becomes Air
    When Your Children Dance
    Where Is God
    Who Am I
    Wicked Witchof The East
    Widower
    Widowhood
    Will
    Woebbelin
    Woebellin
    Woman's Survivor Alliance
    Women Living With Breast Cancer
    Women's Health Watch
    World Cancer Research Center
    World Institute On Disability
    World Theater Day
    World Trade Center
    World Wide Breast Cancer Statistics
    Yahrzeit
    Yifrach
    Yoga
    Yom HaShoah
    You Are Not Alone Series
    Zeus
    Zimbabwe

    Archives

    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    October 1909

    RSS Feed

DONATE
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ACTUAL DANCE
Contact Samuel A. Simon for information and media inquiries:
[email protected]
​202-329-1851
www.TheActualDance.com
​

PRESENTED BY:
Picture
Mr. Milt Orkin, Responsible Agent, at Producers, Inc.:
[email protected] • 813-988-8333 • www.producersinc.com

(c) 2012-2023 All rights reserved The Actual Dance, LLC
Photos from ragesoss, The National Guard