Foreword to the Book

As a professional ballet dancer, I lived in a fairy tale and danced in the limelight for decades. I was one of many warriors for art that dared to dream and reach toward creating a world of beauty and wonder. While my generation from the mid-1970s have left little behind to commemorate the passage of that amazing time (because the video was terrible, spotty, and of poor quality), the feelings that we generated … still speak to those that walk into those darkened red rows of chairs that face the stages eager to be inspired and awed by sounds of orchestras, feel the breaths of an artist’s longing, and dance with the movement of bodies that were choreographed into lakes filled with swans, and palaces filled with celebration, from the drama of mankind’s search for true love.
I was one of those dreamers.

I was captivated by it all when I was five years old.
It called to me.

In one moment, I knew my deepest heart’s desire, even though it was but a whisper in my ear, an echo from a dream, a calling in my heart, and the sensation of a satin point shoe being caressed as it slid onto my feet.

The theater spoke to me in a voice that I believed understood that I had a longing inside that was so deep that until the lights dimmed and the music began to play, that voice never had anything resonate with it in such a way that allowed it to awaken and remember.
It was not just a call to something wild inside. But a call to something ancient and so very old. I could feel it as it began to rise up.
In that theater, I finally felt as if I was home.
Home is not a place but a feeling. Until that moment, I did not realize that I had been an orphan wandering in a barren landscape, searching for something that would quench my soul from this parched thirst. A thirst that had seemed to never be satiated by anything other than when the rainbows appeared in Colorado during a summer rainstorm. Or when the fairy of the old, dying tree in my backyard appeared to show me the secrets of the creek, where the carp still swam free, and the bobcats still had their den.
I had always known I was made of magic.

But I thought I might have been some mistake because I was born into a world that seemed to have forgotten that magic was real and that it existed. This world had lost its innocence and lost touch with a type of essential trust that allowed dreams to come alive. This world seemed to have minimized the value of hope and seemed to have banned or blocked this essential quality that allowed for new creations and marvels.
That is the moment when I realized or half-remembered from the soft shifting of the light that perhaps I had come to bring some of that magic back.

I was a child filled with light and saw into the worlds that still lived on the edges of what they called this reality.
I also knew that this world was trapped in a very narrow band of light. The intense gravity and atmospheric restriction to the light caused so many people here to fall into figuring out how to survive …  but they did not know how to see past their own eyes that blinded them to everything that was surrounding them.
In the theater, magic was alive. This place lived and thrived in a portal of time and space that brought to life dreams, stories, myths, and fairy tales. It made emotions into movement, and that movement opened my eyes and allowed me to see past the narrow reality in which I realized that most humans lived.
As the curtain opened to the lights and sounds moving together, it was the first moment that I could actually breathe. Really fully breathe!

There in that place and moment, I could breathe in the light that I so desperately needed. I could breathe in the memories that were suddenly so familiar and making my whole body tingle. I noticed that the hair on my arms connected to and could feel the electricity that the artists and musicians were creating as they electrified the space with creative potential.
I was not just an audience; I was part of a massive, focused beam of cosmic conscious intention that fixated on that stage, feeding the dancer’s energy. I was a type of fuel they also desired, wanted, craved, and yearned for. I was a part of them, and they were a part of me. I was not separate from them. I was one of them.
My heart exploded open and moved out through my eyes and down into my feet. My muscles began to move and dance silently with them while my head suddenly connected to something infinite, wonderful, and familiar.
That is when I heard a sirens call.
I heard Terpsichore calling me!
I did not know her name, but I knew her in my soul.
I did not know she was the Godden of Dance, the Muse of Poetry, and the Minstrel of Magic.
But I knew her. Instantly I knew that was one of her children that had been asked to embody this density to inspire humanity to see the beauty in suffering, the power in facing shadow, and the path to wholeness.
For some in the audience, she just brought a moment of peace and joy to their life of hardship.

For others, she opened them and softened the edges that sought deeper compassion and understanding. She showed them that they were not alone in what they felt.
And for a very few, she showed the doorways to a world that would demand everything they had, promised no glory, no fame, and no financial security. She even promised that if she deemed a few worthy, they would eventually lose it all to an aging body, a world where they would eventually fall out of favor, and hinted at the hidden dangers that the theater was an addiction unlike any other. She promised to give us a taste of that elixir that she carried through her art. She warned that once tasted that such a longing to taste it again would never go away, nor would that craving give the soul a moment of peace because of its eternal longing.
But I knew that that type of longing. I had felt it my whole life. I just needed tools to be able to find that precious storehouse of this elixir. I knew that I had a faculty that could magnetically draw enough energy and light through this density and somehow manage to create something of beauty and generate a moment that was so very special that a drop of that elixir might fall onto my tongue.
That would be the moment when the body moved beyond this density and could become one with the magic.
Some in the audience would come to see and feel that magical moment. Some might only briefly sense a shift in the vibration of the theater. Then there would be a very few that would be graced to feel it and become one with it, thereby becoming more than they knew themselves to be in that moment.
I knew instantly that I was to be one of those few. I knew I had to reach and to try. I knew I had tried and failed in other lifetimes, but there was a deep knowing in my soul that this was my calling.
I was being shaped and molded by that yearning that understood something that even my young mind could not completely understand. But that child in me recognized it and instantly reached for it.
Terpsichore took my hand, and in payment, she took my heart and soul. It was a cost that I willingly offered up to her, and even now, I still have no regrets.
I have lived a life that others have only dreamed of.
I have wandered ancient pathways carved by other great artists before me. They laid the foundation stones that I have continued to walk upon.
And from that point on, I was never alone.
Art is a lover that never leaves us. Art is a force that is forever felt, and that allows one to see what others do not see, sense what others miss, and touch what others walk past. Art whispers secrets to us that allow us to see into the souls of statues and feel the passion of the sculpture while allowing us to feel the pulse of the artist that created it. Art reminds us to notice the most subtle of brush strokes and the play of light upon a tree. Art allows us to hear the conversations between the earth and the sky, the ocean and the shore.
Art is what makes life … alive.

This is my story, one that I hope will align with those ready to open to what exists still hidden at the edges of the human mind. One that might show you the doorway to your own magic. One that might help you remember many things from the past and bring them into the now so they can heal with you and show you their gifts.

That little girl inside is still seeking those that understand the languages of twilight, the languages of the limelight, and the languages of souls merging and becoming one.
My inner child searches for those that recognize the laughter that calls from the lilting music of the orchestra, but also those that are willing to feel the despair of such profound loss that it tears hearts open.
Art is designed to break us.
It must break us … to heal us.
It asks us to surrender our defensive postures in favor of authenticity and realness. Art denies our excuses and shows where we believe we are an emperor with clothes on … when we are really naked and wandering in a world that offers only truth.
Art reveals the truth beautifully, profoundly, without any excuses, and it does not try to make it into something that everyone wants to eat. Art is not a Mcdonald’s. It is not some type of fast food that will give hollow empty calories as an empty promise of fulfillment that falls short.

Art is to be savored. Art is sensual and subtle. Art speaks to us in the ways that our soul needs and in ways that we can assimilate at that moment.
A thousand people can be in an audience, and most will take something away that is unique and different from the others.
We are drawn to certain flavors and depths because of where we are in our evolution.
The theater offers up many levels and layers of nourishment, depending upon our level of awareness and what we are ready to deal with and engage.
I invite you to dance with me into the layers of ballet, the theater, and the potential that is, of course … life.
I am grateful to be able to share this journey with you, and my wish is for you to become opened through my words to the wonderful and many diverse forms of art. I hope to inspire you to find your own creative expression in this world.
All artists have something precious to share with you. And when you come to the theaters, art exhibit openings, concerts, and films … you allow us to give our gift to you.

Thank you.

~Suzanne Wagner~