Telling our stories

There are many ways to tell a story. Art is one of the best.

All kinds of art.

This afternoon, I sat in the 12^th Street Gallery in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C.—along a strip with two barbers, a nail salon, a shoe repair shop and a hardware store—and watched and listened as stories unspooled: in paintings on the walls, in a film about love and religion, in soulful music from strings and percussion, in dance, and in writing.

Ronya Lee Anderson, who told her story at Temporium July 8

This is Temporium, a summer art festival presented by Dance Place, one of my favorite spots in D.C. In addition to presenting high-quality performances every weekend, Dance Place supports after-school programming for children and offers myriad classes for adults. Now, it’s also promoting arts beyond its own genre, and beyond its own studios, though still in its own neighborhood—a community that happens to be far from the heady halls of the “high art.”

I am lucky enough to have dipped a toe in both worlds this weekend: first, I went to the Kennedy Center, D.C.’s high-end performance art venue, as a special birthday treat for my girl, Clara. We saw the Paris Opera Ballet dance Giselle, a romantic portrayal of a heartbroken maiden. The lead dancer absolutely transcended gravity and the “Wilis” who accompanied her – ghosts of women who died of heartbreak before they could marry – drifted in an unimaginably otherworldly wave across the stage.

The Paris Opera Ballet Wilis, telling an old story of heartbreak

Then today, I was immersed in the more reality-grounded world of contemporary art: art that told the stories of real people, the sorts of folks I run into right here, in the city. There was a dance about the comfort of finding a voice in movement; another about the challenge of asserting identity. There was a luscious vocal talent following a film on Muslim love; a quartet of musicians telling their own musical stories; and bright paintings I barely had time to acknowledge, because there was such activity all around. I’ll have to return to give them the consideration I’m sure they deserve.

Nadia Janjua's story, on exhibit at the 12th Street Gallery

I was lucky enough to offer a creative writing workshop in the midst of it all. “Everyone Has a Story,” I called it—because you don’t have to be A Writer, or A Novelist, to tell your story, just as you don’t have to be a ballerina at the Kennedy Center to have something meaningful and profound to say through movement. Like so much about art, the workshop became a fluid experience – we expected to be in one place but, because of excessive heat (and lack of air conditioning) wound up in another. Because of scheduling challenges, we considered moving a second time but instead opted to stay at the 12^th Street Gallery. The result was an easy movement from film to music to writing to dance, everyone telling a story in a different way. This was Temporium.

Thanks to Dance Place, my friend Carla Perlo for pulling me into its community, and to all the artists involved in Temporium for making art come alive, and for giving us so many ways to hear and tell our stories.

Brookland's Temporium continues throughout the summer : check it out here.