I drive at dusk.
The syrupy hot evening glows in tangerines and golds. I navigate the streets in sun-lit silence, the windows are down, the heat of summer warms my cheeks, and the AC is on. This combination of windows down and AC on is how I drove in Texas, when at 6am my elbows would be sweating from the molasses-thick humidity.
My thoughts trace familiar narratives … epiphanies on replay:
I think of how comedy flourishes in democracies.
I think of South Africa, and how the end of Apartheid signaled the celebratory rise of stand-up comedy, securing the creative foundation for comedian Trevor Noah to speak openly about the state of his nation, his government and its politicians and policies.
I think of how when the right to free speech is threatened, comedy is one of the first art forms to experience the nefarious beginnings of encroaching censorship and the darkened descent of suppressive silencing.
I think about the post-war comedians in Liberia and their focus on uniting their country after its brutal civil war.
I remember sitting on the beige sofa in my bungalow’s living room in Austin, a half-empty bowl of veggie pasta resting on my lap, as I watch Netflix’s Larry Charles’ Dangerous World Of Comedy, and in the show’s interviews, hear Liberians’ stories of the horrendous atrocities that occurred during their Civil War, and how these experiences fuel the motivating mission of the nation’s comedians. These survivors of war know that there is profound medicine in laughing, that laughing together as a group does the work of unity, connection, community-building.
Their stories journey with me.
Their stories change me.
Their stories urgently emphasize the critical role of creativity, the power of performance and the revolutionary capabilities of comedy in advocating, ensuring and championing human rights.
And the The Happy Vagina was the first to teach me about this crucial relationship between comedy and human rights, between creativity and advocacy.
It’s been over a decade since I bounced out onto that university theatre stage as the “Happy Vagina” in Eve Ensler’s revelatory play, The Vagina Monologues.
Through the words of the playwright, a woman who has befriended her sacred rage, who has unearthed and channeled stories as a vehicle for forward movement, for healing and empowerment, for positive change, I celebrated the gorgeous, pleasure-lit gift of existing within this phenomenal female body.
And with Eve’s writing as my guide, I did this through humor, through play, through joy.
Comedy elevates, helps us metabolize the story, the experience, brings us back to seeing each other as human beings. It returns us to connection, to the present moment, and as Stephen Colbert says, you can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time.
The laughter wins out.
The “Happy Vagina” role encapsulated everything I was yearning to learn in my academic studies of human rights.
That role gave me a taste of my future in improv comedy.
That role merged together my passions for human rights and creative expression. The “Happy Vagina” showed me that the two were not separate, the two could be one.
And it’s taken me a decade or so to let this lesson be embodied.
Perhaps it’s taken until this very drive, this sunset cruise, where I am present to the fading splendor of the day and attentive to the glimmers of my past. Snapshots of the women I once was now flow and forge together to create a harmonious portrait of who I am today.
I breathe into this healing, to remedy this rupture that I inflicted upon myself.
I scissor-sliced my twenties, a heart-wrenching divide between the human rights focused woman I was in my early twenties and the creative performer I allowed myself to be in my late twenties.
My early twenties revolved around my fierce dedication to human rights. I was enthralled by international law (so much so that I took a thicket of notes with me to study while on mid-winter break vacation), dressed in J-crew suits as I facilitated bystander empowerment programs to cultivate safety within my hometown of Lexington.
And then the pivot, because neglecting my creative instincts, ignoring my creative glimmers provoked an agonizing emptiness. So, I leapt to Austin and devoted myself to creativity. My days spun around performing avant-garde midnight improv shows, walking dogs and listening to Orpah’s SuperSoul episodes, painting my eyelids with metallic glitter and immersing myself in dramatic storytelling for children and improvisational theatre for teens.
Now, in my thirties, on this summer drive, my past in the passenger seat, and my gaze set for the horizon, I am beginning to see the unfolding tapestry of my life. All these seemingly unrelated passions and interests are all one.
Everything that has ever called to my soul has been related, connected, united.
The aliveness I felt studying international law is the same heart-beat thrill I felt when eagerly reading and highlighting notes in Sam Wasson’s Improv Nation: How We Made A Great American Art.
In learning about the origins of improv, a truly American art form, I meet kindred spirits, I meet people who blended their passions.
Viola Spolin, the Mother of Improv, utilized her background as a social worker in the immigrant communities of Chicago and her absolute enjoyment for games to create improvisational theatre – a theatre that welcomed everyone and endorsed the spirit of connection, collaboration, and collective creation. At its heart, it’s democratic theatre and theatre that helped immigrants and children of immigrants become active and responsible citizens.
The two are one.
In 1955, Viola’s son, Paul Sills and his compatriot, David Shepherd started the first improvisational theatre, The Compass Players. They wanted to found a theatre for the people by the people, to talk about the real issues of the day, to connect with the common person and have the average person see the issues in their lives reflected in their shows.
The two are one.
Comedy safeguards human rights, and the protection of human rights creates the platform for the thriving atmosphere of comedy.
Free speech is our basic human right, and an essential ingredient to comedy.
The two cannot exist without the other, and the moment one is threatened, so is the other.
The women I was in my twenties, the threads that make up my life, are not disconnected, disjointed, or random. It’s all connected, all joined together into curiosities that if and when followed create an unexpected surprise that is perfectly orchestrated.
Trauma impacts our perception of the world, skews the perception of ourselves. We compartmentalize, we forget the holistic harmony of our inherent wholeness, and we fall into operating from the “either or” mindset.
When we gently widen our gaze, we can see the bothness, we can expand our capacity to include it all, to see everything as connected, whole, working in harmony.
We can YES AND LIVE the improv way, and trust the nudges of our various interests, letting the subtle callings of our curiosities carry us forward, and when we do look back, at the past decade, at our lives, if we remain open-hearted, we might be delighted or soothed to witness, to see the perfection of all the things we learned, experienced, of how all parts of our selves were all working in tandem.
This deepening peace ripples through me like the warm colors bathing the world at dusk. The woman who laughs at Trevor Noah’s jokes and the woman who advocates and understands that this comedy thrives when humans are guaranteed their basic right to speak freely and openly are together within me.
I see the two as whole, as one. It’s all the same. It’s all playing together in the weaving of my life’s tapestry and in the greater collective’s, too. I just need to keep answering the call to say YES, AND be open to being surprised as I follow through.
On The Horizon … Body Writes Summer Session!
Interested in Improv and yet, don’t feel that creative call to perform on stage?
As we say in improv, as we rally as a pumped-up group backstage, I’ve got your back!
I’m all thrills to announce that I’ll be weaving Improv philosophy and its liberating creative techniques into my upcoming summer session of Body Writes.
This is a session for the spirited Creatives who can utilize improvisational skills off-the-stage … in the scenes of their life and in their other creative callings.
You can show up to this virtual workshop session with camera off … just keep an open-heartedness and a willingness to tune into the all-knowing soles of your feet!
This is nervous system recalibration and inner healing work through PLAY, expression, and softening into trusting ease. It’s all about FLOW.
Body Writes: Flow With Summer Ease & Shine Out Your Creative Luminosity: When?! :: Saturday, August 6th: 10am — 12:15pm
Where?! :: The Sacred Tech Space of Zoom (Invitation link will be sent out a week before our gathering.)
How Much?! :: $122 (Proceeds benefit The Children’s Advocacy Center, please read about their work here.)
If you feel intrigued, feel a heartbeat of yes, skip on over and sign up here!