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SoLow Fest: RAINDANCE
Photo: Kalila Kingsford Smith


SoLow Fest: RAINDANCE

by Kalila Kingsford Smith

SoLow Fest is a do-it-yourself festival in June that focuses on “solo performance that is low-maintenance and low-stress.” Now in its seventh year, it has become an opportunity for independent and emerging theatre, music, and dance artists to present work in varying stages of development, from half-baked to fully produced. In the spirit of low-maintenance, many performances take place outside or in artists’ homes, and all claim a pay-what-you-can ticketing policy.


 

I feel the breeze

and wonder if it moves you.  

I hear your sneakers scrape the concrete

and wonder if it hurts you.

I see the clouds

and wonder if you conjure them.

 

You are so small against this empty space.

But you spiral

I spiral.

You swing

I swing.

 

They sit in the mini amphitheater, finally here’s your audience.

You don't squirm when a jokester joins you. He embarrasses quickly and leaves.

His friends are more interested in you.

 

Have you changed your dynamic,

your focus, now that they are

closer                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

to you?

 

There is quiet, but rumbling,

cars and leaves,

not yet thunder.

 

Your job is not over until it rains.

 

I am thirsty.

 


Sean Thomas Boyt, RAINDANCE, Old Pine Community Center, June 19



By Kalila Kingsford Smith
July 4, 2017

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