Benji's Modern Dance Debut.

Yesterday Benji had his first (unscheduled) dance performance, as part of the Pittsburgh International Children's Festival. No cameras were permitted in the performance, but it was so beautiful, I feel I must describe it.

The performance, Farfalle, was by an Italian modern dance troupe, and it was an abstract telling of the butterfly's life cycle, from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. The stage was sunken, with a few shallow rows of carpeted seating on two sides of the stage. We were all asked to take off our shoes before the performance. The theater was in almost total darkness, while lights and images were projected onto the floor and two walls of the stage (the two sides where no one was seated). Two female dancers interacted with the light projections and with the music to interpret the life cycle of the butterfly.

For the "chrysalis" segment of the performance, the lights suggested a moonlit night, with eerie, otherworldly music. One of the dancers lay in the middle of the stage, while the other walked around the edge and through the audience. She first took the hand of a little girl, almost exactly Benji's size, and led her along until they came to Benji. She then took Benji's hand, too, and whispered in his ear to ask him to come with her. He hesitated a bit, but then followed her, slowly, cautiously, to the stage. The two children held hands and looked at each other and at the lights. They had the feel of some archetypal portrait of Innocence and Wonder, with their baby faces and tiny statures.

The children were led to the dancer lying on the floor, and she took their hands and had them sit with her. The other woman danced around them, carrying a folded canopy of netting. She then lay one end of the canopy on the stage, and unfolded it over the children and the other dancer. It was a wire structure with netting stretched over it: the chrysalis.

Benji sat perfectly still inside the chrysalis, he and the little girl, with the most perfect expressions of wonder on their faces. The dancer continued to circle the chrysalis, until she exited the stage and came back with two single wings on wire staffs, when she opened the chrysalis and led the children back to their seats. The performance continued with projections of butterflies, which filled the floor and walls of the stage with color, after the monotone eerie gray-green of the "chrysalis" segment.

It was a wonderful birthday present.