Heart String was born out of a journey with grief and death. After losing both of my parents to cancer, dance became my healing place, center of expression, and release. These losses sparked a deep curiosity about death, grief, and their overlap with the body and movement. I began making artistic work about the loss of my parents, and in 2022 I began to wonder: What would happen if I brought together an ensemble of dancers who have also experienced the death of a close loved one? What art would we create together? What would we alchemize out of the well of grief? This became the foundational inquiry for Heart String.

In bringing together this ensemble of dancers, I asked each dancer if they wanted to go on this journey with me: to explore the realms of grief and death through our shared art form - dance - and our shared languages of loss. It has been a deep honor to embark on this process of creation with this beautiful group of artists. Death and our experience with it is so personal, and yet it is also one of the few certainties we all share as humans: that death will touch our lives at some point. In this creative process we turned to our own personal experiences with death and grief, to the body and how it stores memory and emotion, and to the wisdom of poets, musicians, writers, and elders. In building this dance, we created something deeply personal, rooted in our individual stories and experiences of the death of our loved ones. Yet, I sense that our dance and stories touch on something much greater than ourselves.

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This much became clear to me while collaborating with the Threshold Choir singers, many of whom have close relationships with death, whether through their work in hospice or in their personal lives. Collaborating with a musical group who knows death so familiarly was of the utmost importance to me, and weaving this intergenerational creative partnership has been fulfilling beyond words. In collaborating with the ensemble of dancers and the Threshold Choir, Heart String has become so much bigger than myself and my own personal journey with death. And in a world in which the journey with grief can feel so isolating, this has been a profound gift.

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My connection with the Threshold Choir also holds some special history. When considering the music for Heart String, I knew I wanted a soundscape that would match the heart-centered nature of the show. I thought of Kate Munger and the Threshold Choir, whom I have known since I was a child, when my late Mom, Claire, sang in her choir. I remember falling asleep as they rehearsed in our living room, lulled by the choir's mesmerizing harmonies. I reached out to Kate, after 20+ years of distance, to share about the vision for Heart String and to inquire about a potential collaboration. She quickly responded with a resounding "Yes!" and over the past year+, Kate and I have convened over many calls to weave together the music and dance of Heart String. It has been a powerful experience to connect and collaborate with Kate, especially given her tie to my childhood and her relationship to my mother. Kate formed the Heart String choir with singers from Threshold Choir chapters around California, and even out of state! The Threshold Choir's music was created specifically for the bedside, to ease people dying. I am grateful to Kate and the Choir for bringing these sacred songs to the stage for Heart String.

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Thank you for being here tonight. We welcome you, your grief, and your loved ones who have died. May we be here together amidst the oceans of grief.