Futuristic Dream
This project was birthed out of a series of questions that I posed to the wonderful Hailey McAvoy, asking her to imagine a better, more equitable and just future for opera.
I am backstage, milling around before my first entrance.
I am singing Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. The theater feels like many I’ve been in before, but I haven’t been to this particular one.
My costume is reminiscent of one I’ve worn in waking life, with one exception: the shoes are truly, deeply comfortable. They feel like mine. They might even be my own that I brought from home. I feel connected to my body; my body feels connected to the core of the earth through my shoes.
My nervous system feels remarkably open, and I notice that I feel openness from the people around me as well. Yes, we all have the standard jitters that come before a show, but even that nervous energy… it is able to travel from one of us to the other in a positive and uplifting way; it is golden and crackling and full of life. No one’s forehead is creased with worry. No one is off in the corner talking themselves off a pre-performance-anxiety ledge. No one is squeezing into a costume that sets them on edge.
The audience waits for us in joyful anticipation.
When it’s time for my first entrance, I bomb across the stage, running, hopping, skipping. There are sturdy railings on all the stairs of the set. I’m able to grab the railings and fly down the stairs, losing none of my boyish momentum in the process.
The show is off and running. The singers feel connected to one another and to the audience. The conductor listens and reacts in real time to us and to the orchestra, leading us expertly through the harmonic changes and tempo shifts.
There is one moment in the show—a particularly difficult ensemble, maybe—in which disaster strikes.
The disaster? A spark of fear races through my body; I startle; my legs suddenly clench, flinching as a rabbit does in reaction to a distant, unexpected sound.
(In waking life this happens to me all the time—one symptom of mild Cerebral Palsy. This small, physical phenomenon, almost invisible to the outside eye, used to cause me so much physical strain that my voice would stop; so much emotional discomfort that I’d want to melt into the ground. After over a decade of dealing with it, I’ve learned to minimize its impact so that others don’t know the damage control I’m doing.)
Yes, even in this futuristic dream, my legs still clench. I’m able (as I am in waking life) to move them out of their freeze quickly and calmly—I boyishly lean against a table and start dancing in place and boom, I’m back in action!
And as I click back into action, my mind is remarkably calm, happy, and ready to continue playing in my character.
There is no internal voice that says, “Will anyone have seen that? What will they think of me? Will they still believe I can be a wild boy?”
In this future world, everyone knows I can. And I know that they know.
There is no one in the audience who becomes distracted by my limp or my invisible “disaster” startle.
No one in the audience measures me against some imagined ideal of a healthy and fit performer. They look at me as I am. They know I am healthy and fit in the same moment that I am disabled.
No one approaches me later with questions… the questions I have heard so often in waking life, that are concerned and yet feel demeaning:
“Does your leg hurt you?”
“You looked so uncomfortable. Are you ok?”
“Wow! How can you run around and jump and play a boy like that?”
“How do you ever manage to project like that when you sit down? Doesn’t sitting down make everyone’s singing worse?”
In this better, imaginary future, no one gives me well-intentioned compliments that sting for years after they’ve been spoken:
“Wow, you are such a convincing old woman! That limp is so believable! You were really hobbling around up there!”
“Boy, for someone who is disabled, you sure are able to run around on stage! But of course, I don’t think of you as disabled.”
“Sitting like that… I’ve never seen that before! You are so brave.”
Instead, they see me. They hear me. They are present with me. And as I do what I need to do to tend to my body in the moment of performing, to execute my job to the best of my ability, they think: “Yes Hansel!! You sit on that ground!” And they contemplate the idea of asking their boss whether they might work from the floor instead of from a desk because they also like sitting on the floor.
When I take care of myself, other people are inspired to take care of themselves as well, instead of asking me why I don’t conform to the unspoken rules that keep us all uncomfortable.
No one mistakes my caring for myself as weakness.
No one mistakes their own caring for themselves as weakness.
“No one mistakes their own caring for themselves as weakness.”
As the opera draws to a close and my cast-mates and I line up to bow, our nervous systems are still open and in a space of play. As we take hands for our final bows, a glowing warmth of connection spreads from each of us to the other and out into the audience.
The audience is open to the restorative joy we are sharing with them. As they applaud, we can feel their genuine gratitude.
After the show, I am greeted by:
The director: “Your embodiment of the character was so strong! I could really feel you in it tonight. I love working with you.”
The producer: “You stole the show. EVERYONE is talking about you!”
An enthusiastic audience member: “Wow… all I can say is… I want to be as cool as you when I grow up!”
As I talk with people and ultimately head home for the evening, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of soft openness and gratitude.
The audience saw me, and it was not because I had to stand (or sit) my ground and defy the voices that would ask me whether I belong on stage.
I existed fully as myself, along with my cast mates… and we do not feel the victorious tax of having done so defiantly.
The power, the stardust that lives inside me, reached every end of the theater. It was soft, enveloping, golden, and pink.
The path ahead of me is open and collaborative. The possibilities are endless when the creative team lives with me in a space outside the limits we have been told exist.
Everyone knows I was born to do this.
