And so it is . . . back to everyday life now. 

 

The magical suspension of ‘normal’ life has come to an end now that Far from Home is over. Two weeks of intense, fun and challenging rehearsals led by two exceptional dancers and beautiful individuals will stay with me forever. 

 

The Alleyne Dance dancers were a joy to watch as they rehearsed their various routines, rising to super human challenges with their athleticism, and finding infinite ways of spinning, jumping and rolling with expression and charged emotion. 

 

I like to think of this piece as Widening and Expanding. The company widened/expanded to include interns and then widened/expanded again to include non-professional movers, members of the local community aged from 8 to 70 years old. The cast came from across the world including Argentina, China, France, Italy and Ukraine. The subject matter, migration, requires expansive minds and hearts to think about a better future, rebuilding, expanding, widening horizons and ambitions. As a participant, Far from Home expanded and widened my views and hopefully it had a similar effect for those attending DanceEast last Friday. When we expand and go wide we open the space for hope. I am not a blogger and it is not something that I revel in but, in the spirit of widening and expanding my own horizons, here it is: a small homage to Alleyne Dance. Long may they continue to grow and expand.

 

Diego Robirosa