2012 Solo Performance Newsletter from Tanya

Dear Friends,

I am very thankful that there are people like you in the world. People who care deeply about the power of stories and performances, who understand the transformation possible when we are willing to look deeply into our own Souls, mine them for gold and bring them back to our tribe.

Over the years, I have come to know solo performance as shamanic work. We (the performers) go into the darkness alone, slay our own dragons and bring the gifts and wisdom (embedded in our shows) back to our modern day tribe (the audience)

When it comes right down to it, this is what keeps me on this path. My deepening understanding of the power of stories. When we awaken to our own stories and marry them to our creativity and insight, we have the power to change the world. This is not some trite cliche. It is my direct experience of this work.

My work is a deep blessing to my own Soul. This past year alone, I have worked on shows that have included finding grace and new light in the wake of a parental suicide, worked for the second time with a Vietnam Vet painting prayers to the dead underneath angels in his Magnum Opus, worked with a woman in her sixties claiming her own sexuality after being silenced for her entire life and many... more. These are the stories that help us understand our own humanity. When you stand in your light and perform a solo show, you give others more permission to stand in theirs.

Solo performance is at once both ancient and contemporary. In it's contemporary form it returns us to our tribal face. Sitting around fire, learning about life and our relationship to it, through our stories.

Or, sitting in a darkened theater, lights shining down, sharing our stories.

If you are interested in joining the ranks of the brave ones, the deeply human ones like Mike Daisey, Spalding Gray, Anna Deveare Smith, Lauren Weedman, Ann Randolph, John Leguizamo, Danny Hoch, Eve Ensler and all the anonymous storytellers who have kept the human spirit burning throughout time, then make 2013 the year you do it. I am here to help. But it's up to you to stop procrastinating and simply decide to do it.

Happy Holidays to you all and creative blessings as well~

Love,

Tanya