Dancing through life, the final 31 days of 2020. —Day 2—

 Dancing through life, the final 31 days of 2020. —Day 2—

My heart aches for the stage, for a live audience and for the connections and energy that come with performing. It energizes and revitalizes my mind and my body. I’ve always had to juggle between my 4 jobs and that was exhausting but in a good way because performing, dancing and teaching all balanced my life, mind, body and soul. The pandemic broke up the stage from performers and it cuts deeply. I finally did perform on a stage for Spiral Dance on Halloween with livestream audiences. That night I FaceTimed with a friend and “Zahna, you are positively glowing.” This affirms that I know exactly where I belong—in performance. I continue to stay hopeful and know that one day in safety and steps we will return to the stage and live audiences.

I am reminded of when I was a little girl performing in the nutcracker—I even loved performing then. I told my mom I wanted to perform for strangers and on a bigger stage. She told me that the audience was strangers because I don’t know everyone there. I said no mom, I know the people are mostly parents and family of the other kids—I want to perform for like hundreds of complete strangers. Little did I know I would end up performing globally for thousands of audiences.

#2020Selfreflection #urbanjazzdancecompany

ID: [Picture of Zahna performing on a black stage in a black leotard and shorts wearing tan tights and pointe shoes. She is on the ground with her right leg propping up her body in a bridge and her left leg in the air. Her hair is in a bun, her right arm reaches up to the ceiling.]