Suriname – The Performance

The days before the performance finally tick away. I realize that my time in Suriname was interesting, exotic, educational, dangerous, and complicated.
There are moments when we learn so much that we cannot quite grasp all the significant points in that instant. Some things need to be seasoned and sorted through the elements of time.
This trip would be like that. So much was so intense, new, challenging, and scary that it would take me a long time to understand it all and to see the places where I was fully present and the times that were so frightening that I gapped out for moments as a form of protection.
One day, I sat in the backyard listening to the sounds of the jungle making so much noise. I was learning how vitally alive such places were. I learned how important it is to allow such places to exist. I could see that the sheer forces of nature could be so terrifying to mankind and how we had decided to try to control nature rather than understand it.
One day, I watched Herman’s father go out to feed the chickens that they kept for fresh eggs and noticed that the chicken coop looked like a reinforced prison. It had multiple layers of fencing to keep predators out clearly.
His father did not open up the gate that was clearly tricky to undo. Instead, he just threw the chicken scratch through the wire fencing.
After he did that and walked away, I sat quietly there, listening to the jungle. When suddenly, I noticed a quick flash of movement. That is when I see a huge rat-like creature scurry out of the jungle, with red eyes, and it begins reaching through the wire to grab the food with its small but effective hands. The speed of this creature was so fast it alarmed me. But what alarmed me, even more, was the size of this rat-like creature. It was the size of a dog. Cleary 30 pounds and brown with a clearly defined rat tail. It looked very well-fed.
It moved with such intelligence, purpose, and speed. I sat there, too stunned to move. I realized the stories of the olden days, where rats used to eat babies in cribs … might have been true after all. This animal could have clearly done that.
And then it was gone … just as quickly. As it ran away, it was engulfed by the dense foliage of the jungle.
While it was there, the chickens were squawking in alarm for obvious reasons. It stuffed its jowls full of seeds and corn and left.
At that moment, I think, there are things in the jungle that mankind still does not understand or know about. There are things that lurk in the places that mankind fears. He fears them because they are not like him. He fears them because he cannot control them.
Another moment that stands out was a day when Herman’s mother was making a curry soup. But the amazing thing was the plantains that she was cooking over an open fire on the stones around the firepit. She cooked them, and while that was cool and something I had never seen, the next thing was amazing. She had a huge mortar and pestle that was the size of a churn for butter in the olden days. It was made out of wood, and that wood looked like it had been seasoned from decades of use.
She placed the cooked plantains inside and started pounding them. The pounding got the starches to stick together enough to make them hold their shape. Then from there, she flavored them with spices and then dumped a plantain banana ball into the center of each bowl of soup.
It was beyond delicious! You were supposed to break the ball open and mix it with the curried soup. It made the soup hearty and creamy.
I truly have never tasted anything like it, sense.
Finally, performance day arrives, and all the dancers, including myself, are very excited. It had taken a lot of hard work by Herman even to get us to this point.
I arrive and do what I normally do before a show, and before long, the performance is getting ready to begin.
When suddenly, a black cat crosses the stage from stage left to right. Instantly the whole audience is rumbling. I ask what is going on, and the dancers say it is a bad omen and that some still believe in curses, and they think this performance has a curse on it.
Some of the dancers say that it would be easy for a cat to get into the theater because of the need for air to breeze through and the large open Venetian blinds that allowed air in and out.
I think, Oh My! People thinking this performance is cursed is the last thing we need.
I asked one of the dancers if that Winti woman had done her chanting and ceremony before the show, and she said, yes.
Some of the audience actually got up and left. While that was shocking, it was not surprising when we were in an area where such things are very real to the culture and civilization there.
We continue the performance, and things seem to calm down. So far, so good.
We get to the second act of Giselle. We start, and Herman and I get to the Pas de Deux when I feel the costume starting to tear along the front seam of the bodice.
This humidity seemed to have been too much for our costumes from Berlin that were old to start with, and now in this climate, the threads were breaking down.
As Herman is lifting me up, I feel the costume continue to break. The problem is that the seam is in the front of the bodice, and it goes right up to my nipple. It is slowly creeping up. I whisper to Herman what is happening.
He says that he knows.
Now, instead of lifting me up, he is grabbing the seam and lifts me with the costume instead. He is trying to keep the seam from continuing to rip. But that proves impossible.
As I am going on and off stage, I am asking anyone for a needle, thread, and scissors. I quickly realize that most do not understand me, so I start pantomiming what I want with my hands and showing them the rip.
Someone finally retrieves a needle and thread, and I quickly sew the seam roughly together, right before my left nipple is completely exposed to the audience.
Whew! That was a close call.
We finish the rest of the performance without more incidents, and for that, I am grateful.

After the show, as most are gone, and Herman is outside talking to people that he knows, I go out onto the stage and whisper into the darkness.
“Yes, I know you are there. I hope you liked the show. Something different for sure. I would appreciate you coming again to dance with all of us, but can you please not mess with my costume? It does not belong to me. I borrowed it from the Berlin Ballet, and I am responsible for it coming back in a reasonable shape. Oh, and could you please keep the black cat off the stage for the rest of the performances? It was unnerving to the audience. I know you wanted to make your presence known. And it worked! I want to thank all the ancestors for playing with us and reminding us that we are never alone and that those from our past are still here with us in spirit. Thank you again for coming to the show. Please be at peace. I am leaving the flowers I received tonight for the show for you. I hope you enjoy them! Thank you for a show that I will never forget. Thank you for adding mystery and magic tonight. Thank you for showing me that there is always more”
And I left the flowers given to me on the stage for them.
For the rest of the shows, we had no problems.
Too often, we forget that spirits want to engage with the living at certain moments in time. Too often, we think that life is more important than the other realities in which we continue to exist.
And sometimes there is enough energy and power manifesting that those spirits can reach through their reality and into ours. Such moments are special and often rare.
This trip was about looking death in the face. That was clear from the beginning.
There is nothing like looking down the end of an automatic rifle and knowing that in an instant, the person behind that rifle could end your life. There is nothing like seeing hatred in the eyes of someone you don’t know, trying to decide if you are worth more, alive or dead, to them.
And in this show, the dead came to dance (as so often they do) in places that are full of life and places that try to create magic and illusions.
We live in this world, and we live in other realities.
While this reality is important. It is not everything.
I have learned to respect the beliefs and values of others.
I have learned that when we approach understanding from a place of curiosity and wonder rather than judgment and fear, we grow in miraculous ways.
I have learned that cultures are created by the experiences and people that have those experiences. I have learned that people from all walks of life will try to make sense of things that seem to defy logic and understanding. And those beliefs fuel doorways into other realities where we can, for brief moments, connect to other times, places, spaces, energies, and dimensions.
Right now, I am here but also not here.
Right now, I am connected to all that is, and all that was.
Right now, I am learning along this karmic journey, and I am already home. A home that is beyond this particular manifestation of growth.
While I thought that I was at the end of this journey and that the performance was the culmination of this incredible moment. I would yet again be mistaken.
Every day, something new can awaken us.
In every day, death can be stalking us when we least expect it.
Every day, we have to learn to depend on those older and wiser than us for our survival.
I was to face a few more challenges.
All those challenges I could not have survived or managed to make it through in one piece … without the skills and accumulated knowledge of others.
Suriname would teach me, once again, that I am never alone. I am never without help and support. It would teach me that I am ignorant of so much that life offers. It would teach me how I had been living in a bubble that, while safe, was not the only way to live. It would show that wildness is wonderful. Jungles are the playground of nature. And that life is stronger than we think.

~Suzanne Wagner~