To mark the 14th anniversary of September 11, I danced in the 9/11 Table of Silence on the Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center with the Buglisi Dance Theater. The performance consists of 150 professional dancers gathered together to learn a 40 minute long dance with the goal to promote peace.
People promote peace in many different ways such as raising money or hosting a campaign. One way I do it, is dance. I know that a lot of people around the world do not understand dancing and how much it can mean to a person. But for me, dancing is a stress reliever and a way of conveying my ideas without having to say it.
The dance starts with a single conch shell ringing out over the plaza, and the dancers running in from all sides, improvising for about two minutes. When a bell rings we started the walking pattern.
After about ten minutes the lines snaked together to create concentric circles. Three concentric circles that revolved around the center point but in different directions, in this case the outside and inner circles went counter clockwise and the middle circles went clockwise. Buglisi choreographed the whole piece from ancient Native American and Indian rituals, each section of the dance has a special meaning. For example, the concentric circles draw up mandala energy from the core of the earth and spread positive energy into the universe.
Being the youngest dancer at the performance was intimidating. The movement itself was not hard, but the maturity level that the performance needed was what was challenging. Since the performance was about a heavy topic, a younger dancer would not be able to convey the message as well as a dancer that was more mature. But somehow, I managed to pull it off. The whole dance itself was quite moving, 150 dancers dressed in all white flash mobbed Lincoln Center on a Friday morning is pretty cool.
My favorite part of the whole performance was when we had a moment of silence at 8:46am, the same time that the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It was originally supposed to rain that morning, fortunately the weather held off it was just really cloudy. But somehow right when we opened our arms and lifted our hearts to the sky to start the moment of silence the sun came out and shed brilliant light all over the plaza. It must have been that mandala energy.
Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. I was three, and probably eating breakfast in my high chair. But I do not have to remember where I was that exact day because I know where I was September 11, 2015. I was sitting outside of Lincoln Center, surrounded by 150 other people who share the same passion and praying for what I believe the world needs, peace and a little more kindness.