INNOCENCE PASSION WISDOM
VIVID THREE was by far Akimbo's most ambitious to date. It was conceived and executed as a whole and seamless work of art, using dance and colours symbolically to represent evolving stages of growth and maturity.
	The white of innocence, the red of passion, and the blue of wisdom are reflected in every facet of the production, from the different musical styles to the atmospheric lighting and set design.
Each dancer can be interpreted as being a part of a single individual, whose experience is related in a subtext provided in the program. But the audience is free to interpret what they are seeing in any way they wish. Vivid Three is in the eye of the beholder.

Meet the Press: Articles and Reviews

I see an old man in a gabardine suit. His life is mostly done, the hopes and ambitions of his youth exhausted by the long slow sadness of existence. Even though he hasn't worked in years, his hands are calloused and fractured. Most of the time he knows who and where he is, not always. Modest secular miracles of modern medicine relieve the pains of his arthritis, his rheumatism, and his various cancers, but they can't relieve the certain knowledge that these things are with him forever now, and that they spell the only end that matters - his own. He has waded through the blood of friends and family and dire enemies, only to arrive at last where he never thought to come, though he knew he must.

Yet he was young once, a baby even. No form, no function, an uncivilized clot of matter. He began in innocence - without wickedness - knowing no better. In the stupendous arrogance that is the right and privilege of youth, he still thought the earth was as young as he himself, not appreciating (as if anyone could) the unthinkable age of the planet beneath his feet. Madness. What did he know of the silent, gravid menace of the world, of its titanic indifference? His ignorance shielded him from the consequences of proceeding without wariness, without forethought, and so he remained innocent.

But innocence is a doomed enterprise. He began to sense grave inadequacies in the way things work. He had been taught that his existence had some purpose, and that there was an ultimate guide and judge. But he began to observe and reflect, and observation and reflection always lead to doubt. If there was a purpose to his life, it was so cunningly hidden as to be no purpose at all, but a torment. Knowledge is the enemy of innocence, and now, weak and halting, his new knowledge kindled his passion. Passion and anger at being misled, at being deluded and deceived.

After the first death there is no other, and when his caught up to him, his passion and his anger turned into a harrowing, electric leap. The naked randomness and contingency of his life crashed through what was left of his innocence and shattered it. In that particular kind of silence that is grief, he realized that he was alone with only his own will to see him through. And so he made his leap, driven by fear and exalted by rebellion, and he laid to rest his youth and innocence.

Then there was a quiet time , an empty time, and he rested, gathering himself together, perhaps only in order to fly apart. That was the time when his strength was tested, when he was at open war with the gods of his youth. His passion bore him up, but it also led him into intransigent positions. He wandered alone though many dark places in his spirit, unable to make sense of anything he had done. He was wayward, without guidance, until at the uttermost end of his strength, his will prevailed, mastered his passion, and directed it.

So he is quiet now. Not resigned, but at peace. Not raging, but content. He has come to realize that comfort means not the removal or even the mitigation of anguish, but simply the granting of sufficient strength to bear up under the burden. Comfort meant he was not permitted to divest himself of his pain - rather, he was permitted the far more difficult option of coming to grips with it and grappling with it. He was allowed, by his suffering, to be proud and defiant.

He sees that this is a gift, because it ennobles him, as a struggle against a fundamentally insuperable enemy always does. He is permitted to act on his own, rather than be deluded by having his pain taken away. He knows now what is meant by wisdom, and by Grace. It is the courage and will to act as one sees fit, and is the greatest, perhaps the only gift of God.

All that he has been shapes what he is now. His burdens and regrets remain, but wisdom teaches him that they were necessary - they have allowed him to recreate himself in his own image.

If the purpose of life is to prepare for a happy death, then at last his purpose is fulfilled. He is happy. His life has been fine and proud and, content, he walks forward into the beginning of forever.

Copyright © 1996 Akimbo Dance. All rights reserved.
Revised: January 04, 2002.