Edge had just barely opened the first time I’d walked through its doors 28 summers ago. Before the exposed brick, or the vivid primary walls, when it was just white, and new, and so rapturously exciting. I was still in high school. I was a baby, but I was convinced - this special place is where I wanted to be.
Two years later, officially my home, I was an Edge scholarship, fumbling through the year, withstanding more dance than I’d even known I could muster. Living in a new city, still a baby nonetheless, but finding my people, training to my hearts desire and falling in love with dance, which meant hating and loving dance. Helene was there - my inspiration. And Terri - my heart. And Bill and Randy and Carol - always.
This is hard. I cry as I type. Having moved a lot as a kid and having lived the gypsy experience, I’ve only ever known one constant home - Edge Performing Arts Center. I’ve left more sweat in those sacred rooms to fill a million plastic water bottles (that’s one re-usable, sustainable water bottle, lots and lots of times). How many combos learned does it take to get your Masters? My knees tell me I’d have a doctorate. Edge was my science lab.
I’ve auditioned at Edge, held auditions at Edge, created masterpieces to middling numbers, pretty good works to flaming piles of dog mess, all because I was allowed to try - over and over again. I was given countless opportunities to succeed and fail - mostly fail because that’s what paved the way for success, both minor and major, personal and prominent. And isn’t that precisely what Bill and Randy did? They invested in us. They gave us a space to go for our dreams - whether or not we touched them was sort of up to us. That’s at least, what I told my students, in some version of a monologue.
A decade of teaching at Edge - special times, indeed were had. If you knew, you knew, and thank you for knowing. My class wasn’t for everyone, but if you could tolerate my chatter and had some technique, then you might’ve partook. We told stories through movement, you listened, I watched, I shaped some dancers and grew up in the process. It changed me forever.
I’ve bled on those floors. Cried on those floors. Reached heights I didn’t know I could reach on those floors. Slipped on those floors. Spilt tea on those floors. At times fallen asleep, dead to the world on those floors. If walls could talk, yes, the legends and divas they’ve seen, but the floors, my God, they’ve felt me, endured me, and beat me, implored me, sustained me through back aches and heart aches, bookings and gigs to sneer at or celebrate. Life happened and I went to those floors. I owe an insurmountable debt to those floors.
Thank you Bill and Randy for generating generations of choreographers and teachers and studio owners and actors and singers and directors and casting directors and writers and producers and fitness instructors and doctors and accountants and pilots and moms and dads and most importantly, DANCERS, both recreational and professional. For all of the free space, my God, you put art and craft above your own bottom line so dance companies stood a fighting chance and penniless performers could live and spread love and life. Thank you for the limitless supply of class offerings - the stalwarts to the ones that didn’t last long to the ones that spread their wings for other landing places. You gave them space. You let them fly. Thank you to Eddie and Kitty and Denise and Cindera and Adam and Malaya and Nicole and Laura and Mandy and Teeny and Sabrina and Lisa and Liana and Chelsea and Liz and Jackie and Michael and Terry and Wes and Alex and Tovaris and Frank and Ryan and Mecca and Nina and Karine and Andre and Doug and all of those that have taught and enriched and gave of themselves to sometimes 3 or 112 students at a time. To the frontline managers through the years that suffered at the desk, mini crisis after crisis. To Eileen and Tim, the tried and true. To Eliana and Rhonda and Keith and Carol for delivering on a promise.
And to Randy and to Bill - you strived for excellence in dance education and in doing so, you educated all of us about excellence in Life. We mourn this loss with you. WE are your dividends. WE are your legacy.
Edge Performing arts Center - a place, both on the 4th floor of a storied tv dinosaur and a ground floor, cutting Edge turn key. But it’s more than an address. Every. Single. Amazing. Thing. That life has gifted me, was because I entered that building 28 years ago. My tribe, my family, my Love, my passions and dreams and aspirations, my greatest memories, my story - I owe to EDGE.
