A note from Jmy James Kidd, guest-editor
I wanted to work on this Cancer Dancer project for reasons similar to why I have created the organizations / communities / spaces throughout my life like AUNTS is Dance and Pieter Performance Space – something I needed that wasn’t available yet, or available to me, or available in a way I found inviting. I would have loved to have found the support / inspiration / camaraderie of a range of written experiences, images and videos by dancers who had or have cancer in their lives when I got my diagnosis and went through many, many treatments. Arriving on the “other side of cancer” I found myself cleaved into me as cancer patient that couldn’t really believe what I just went through and a new me that was completely lost and empty – who am I, who am I now? Reaching out to other dancer people that I know and that I don’t know, responding to my own writing prompts, peering into and sharing my own experience with myself and others, connecting to these incredible humans that are part of Cancer Dancer is part of my personal integration project that I hope offers insight and support to dancers as well as caregivers as well as anyone, should they find themselves with a god damn cancer diagnosis. I was interested in Dancers writing as Dancer People; from the rhythms, vocabulary, way of their own dance trainings, practices and lives. So much love to Kyoko Takenaka, Roya Carreras, Lindsey Red-tail, Sue Roginski whose writings had me in tears, laughter and deep respect. A resource guide, compiled by us all, can be found online at Pieter Performance Space.
Cancer Dancer Resource Guide on Pieter website: https://www.pieterpasd.com/cancer-dancer-resources
Dancing in the Fire
“Can you stand in the fire of your life?” asked the Pine Tree on my street. She lives on the corner of Lake and Alta Pine Drive, our neighborhood in Altadena before it burned. I remember walking toward her at sunset as I was taken aback by her question. But it was true. I was finding it harder to stand tall and centered after finishing chemotherapy. How can I root down into the Earth when external forces are so overpowering? I could barely walk around the block. The same Pine Tree withstood the Altadena fire, almost untouched. I asked what is one thing I can do everyday to heal? “Stomp your feet”, said the Land. “Give us everything you have”.
Looking up under Dancing Tree I smile.
I can tell she’s been up for hours
swaying her hips side to side and dancing with the Earth Mother.
Seeing which way the branches twist
it’s the way my body wants to move.
I always go to the right, the branches curving upwards.
Notice how she sways side to side in the moonlight
and might even gift you a branch.
Being extended out as far as it can reach, Sky
Sky Mother is wide enough for our voices to sing.
And dance again.
She stood in the fire.
Can you stand in the fire of your life?
Cancer comes to stop you in your tracks. Like fire, she comes in to completely transform you, through death and rebirth wiping out what came before and letting go of the past. She asks you to be with what is, to surrender to what’s here, with you. In January of 2024 both me and my Dad were diagnosed with cancer, him at 72 and me at 34. Cancer asks you to love and accept yourself in new ways, embracing all that is and bringing you back inward. She shows you the dark places that need light, that need to be felt and seen. Remembered. My breast cancer demanded stillness. Quiet surrender. Deep rest and slow night walks, lying on Earth. Cancer transcends our ideas of life and death because it all starts to exist at the same time. I began to live on Tree time.
In May of 2024 I started my chemotherapy treatments, a slow death of my cells. I lost a lot of cognition, memory and ability to do simple tasks, to dance fully, because I was so off balance, my life went on a complete pause. Most days I could just lay down and meditate. Friends and family brought food and juices, keeping me going. About a year later I completed chemotherapy, surgery and radiation while relocating from Altadena to a new home. In remission and with the tumor gone, I re-emerge from illness and loss through movement. Slowly. The slowness that happens at night as trees grow. Quiet. Slow enough to catch a shooting star as it passes by.
Infinite patterns of light
Infinite patterns of flight.
I emerge and let the piece find me.
Like coming up for air
wanting to be free.
And underneath is a voice to meet us
and it’s moving and it’s spiraling up.
Moving up under and through each cell
a ripple of Rainbow
a Sunset a Star.
Before the Altadena fire I was a student of the elements, Wind, Earth, Water, Fire. I began a journey with Nature during the Pandemic, allowing the Ancestors to be my teachers and move through me. I learned to make offerings by singing and dancing on my walks and hikes and later in rituals and ceremonies, playing under the moonlight. I would go to the waterfalls at night to feel wild and sneak into my neighbors yards to breathe with the trees. “Oh I’m just a tree hugger!” I would say. During my chemotherapy treatments I would lean onto the trunks of trees to feel safe and gather strength for the next day. I was called into befriending fire as a transformative ally. One of my last nights in Altadena I did a ritual with foraged cedar logs and pine needles. Out of the center of the fire emerged a brilliant rainbow, streaks shooting into the Sky. I watched the flames and rainbow dance together, lighting up my cells. The Land took me on journeys. Sometimes in visions flying with hawks through the clouds or sometimes a moment like this in ritual. The Spirits took me in and showed themselves becoming part of my everyday life, intertwined. They say, “we are one”. That we are not separate.
Dancing on new Lands with new Trees
That spiral upwards.
I spiral while seeing her and around me
the stars parting clouds on my way up.
With her, a new Tree, I spiral and arrive as tall as I can reach.
Upright spine all the way stretched out.
With my Ancestors I feel alive, FREE.
I EMERGE
but keep reaching…
Grief is a portal.
How do you grieve something that’s gone? Invisible? My tumor is gone but the loss is still felt. We cannot touch my childhood home and the full landscape and it makes my heart melt. What held us all through to my Dad’s last breath. We had our last hug here and I search for what’s left. My eyes scan for what used to be as we stand here now. In the wreckage the ashes smoke, music records sound. How do you grieve all that is intangible? Has moved on? I hug the new Tree in my new neighborhood and let the tears flow. They flow from everything and for all that was lost letting me know. That grief is the dance. It is movement. It is sacred. It is regeneration and beginning again. I hear whispers from the Land, “Not all is lost.” and to “go within”.
Dance is home.
For me, dance is home. It’s how I have always recovered from a crisis. I invite it back into my life and open to its fullness. What wants to emerge. It’s why I chose treatments. It’s why I’m here. I have a simple mission, to dance and sing and radiate star energy. To receive their reflection and reflect it out to others. To open to myself through movement and cellular light vibration reflecting off of leaves and water. Dance is home and joy and medicine. Trance. My legs can carry me. Up mountains with friends, down steep slopes, through illness and portals. The communities of dancers and healing artists in Los Angeles have always revived my soul. We dance through it all transmuting the pain and loss and celebrating the joy and miracles. I learned to dance with fire when it appears at your doorstep. With cancer. With grief. With everything all at once. And within is the medicine, at the center which it emanates from. Ourselves. Our star self.
“Do you have the courage to fly?”
I visit Altadena leaning into charred bark. The trees are quiet as they recover. Saving energy and grieving their families as well. But they always have a message, something to gift. This was the home of the birds and red-tail hawks and will be once again.They cultivate a new home for what is to come. And I fly somewhere new, on a journey beyond what I had visioned for myself in Altadena. Something bigger.
It’s in the songs.
As I recover from Breast Cancer and the change in landscape around me, I am reminded of my connection to Ancestors. That we are not alone. I sing medicine songs throughout the day to restore my memory of my home and to sooth my body and spirit. I learned original Tree songs on my walks in Altadena and one right after the fire, a song for “Grief and Recovery”. As I hear these ancient sounds I sing it back to them. How soft their voices are. I carry the Land in my heart and cherish the gifts they gave me.
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey,
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Yo
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey,
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Way Yo
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey,
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Yo
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey
Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya Hey Ya
Your Way Home.
“Start over”
Where I asked?
“From here, from the Tree itself.”
