Seeing Full Radius Dance (with Shel and Ryan and Shel's friend Amber) was just... earthshatteringly amazing. The first performance they did was "Home," a brand new creation exploring the meaning of home. That was wonderful -- I welled up a few times from the sheer beauty of it. It was so complex that I REALLY want to see it again to understand it more. And THEN they performed "Sacred," a piece on "the inviolability of nature, of religious experience, and of human touch" -- now that made me weep to the point of sobbing! Oh my God/dess, I've never seen anything so beautiful. So much passion! so much intensity! so much tenderness! Truly, honestly, the most beautiful creation I have ever witnessed. And it didn't even feel like witnessing. The dancers were so vibrant that I felt a part of what they were weaving even from where I sat! They finished off with "Passione," which was very exciting and intricate, with feats of strength and agility that made me gasp.

I'm so incredibly awed and deeply humbled that I got the chance to witness this. It feels like I should have had to pay more or wait in huge long lines or something, because this is truly spectacular -- I feel like I went for a walk and accidentally walked through a portal into a faery world. I expected it to be lovely, but I didn't expect it to be so overwhelmingly magical!

And you know, I was a little worried that integrating dancers who use wheelchairs would be used as a sort of gimmick, or that they'd be the background dancers, but it absolutely was NOT. Instead, the wheelchairs were used like skates in figure skating -- to create entirely new ways of moving -- and the choreography balanced the wheeled dancers with the non-wheeled perfectly. All of the dancing spoke to me of embracing differences and working WITH them rather than trying to eliminate them. Is there anything more beautiful than that?

I didn't get any good photos or videos, partly because of the lighting and partly because I just couldn't bear to tear my eyes away from the stage. I was too busy experiencing it to observe it. But here's a video someone else made:

Full Radius Dance: Excerpts from "Passione"

That video does not at ALL do it justice -- I think that must have been from a few years ago, they have more dancers now and that clip didn't show much that I remember so I think they must have changed up the routine also. Ohh, which reminds me -- one of my favorite bits was this intertwined thing where the wheeled dancers spun around the stationary standing dancers and glided off to be caught by another standing dancer and spun around. It looked like they HAD to crash but of course they didn't.

If you live anywhere near here and you have $15, go see it today (Sat, 6th) at 2pm or 8pm at 7 Stages Theatre. If you have plans, change them -- it's worth it.