Today was our 99th Reconnect class of 2020. In Reconnect, we believe you get a gold star just for showing up – we all deserve huge gold stars for making it through this year, and our dancers get another one for continuing to dance and stay connected to each other.

I do Kaiut Yoga three times a week online, and during this morning’s class I had a bit of an epiphany about this strange year. It has been difficult to look to the future because it is entirely unknown and uncertain. It has been difficult to look to the past because things have changed so completely that it feels like another life all together. That only leaves us to be in the present . . . and that is pretty darn uncomfortable, and has been and will be for quite a long time.

However, it is exactly that need to be in the present that makes dance so powerful – we can exist in our bodies and accept them as they are in this moment, we can feel the support across the pixels of our fellow dancers and we can lose ourselves in the music and movement (and actually connect with our authentic selves in the process).

I am so thankful to all of our dancers for continuing to show up, continuing to bring their unique energy into our dancer space, continuing to be devoted to their own dancer journey and supporting our collective journey by keeping the program alive and thriving.

I am also deeply thankful to our Board of Directors (Chloe DiVita, Ellen Rollins, Meghan Camp, Amy Dressel-Martin and Katie Edmiston) and the Artivist Leadership Team (Leann Roberts, Amy Dressel-Martin, Wayne Gilbert and Jan Leversee) for being the foundation under the organization’s feet and always cheering me on, even when it feels hopeless.

I am incredibly thankful for our company members who have continued creating and ADAPTing the way we make art together.

Finally, I am immensely thankful to everyone who donated to Art as Action this year.  It feels like a miracle that we got through the year without any interruption in programming and we are ending the year in a thriving place.  That is thanks to your generous contributions, which mean even more during this difficult time.

In today’s class, we celebrated the amazing accomplishment of simply surviving 2020, as individuals, as a dancer community and as a small and mighty non-profit.  I invite you to end the year with a dance – I can guarantee you’ll feel better afterward.  (If you want some company, click on this video and dance along with us back when we could all be together.)

We may all wake up on January 1st still trying to get through a pandemic – but we can feel proud of the resilience of this remarkable dancer community and feel connected to every other human who helped make it happen.

Yours in Art and Action,

Sarah Leversee
Founder and Artistic Director of Art as Action