Grief is ugly. It consumes one’s time, passions, and energy, leaving only an empty ache for compensation. Creeping up on an individual as they sit alone with their thoughts, or striking mid-laugh as they’re surrounded by friends, grief is a persistent parasite that restlessly taps at one’s mind, demanding to be let in. Like a vampire, if you will, but not of the pasty Twilight variety. When attempting to describe grief, individuals become twisted up in metaphors that fall short of truly capturing the unique whirlpool of deep blues that are pulling them down deeper and deeper down. How does one hope to give voice to such a difficult emotion, or even capture its complexities thoroughly enough to share and present with others?
Interpretive dance, of course.
With her senior independent project, The Absence Unveiled, Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24 intended to explore the five stages of grief, “as defined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in On Death and Dying (1969): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.” Understanding that grief is both universal and unique, Stauffer wanted to present a choreography that drew from her own experiences of grief manifesting in “mind, body, and soul,” but that also acknowledged that grief weaves in and out of people’s lives in different ways. Thus, through dance, Stauffer boiled down the stages of grief into pure expressive movement, poetry, and carefully chosen costumes over seven acts.
The first act had all six dancers lined up on stage, which was the chapel in Old Main. With the chapel’s all encompassing and ghostly white, the dancer’s bright monochromatic costumes were particularly eye-catching. A grieving person, performed by Maxine Feldman ‘26, was clothed in a black dress, standing center stage as a poem on grief was recited down from the balcony. Then, from seemingly nowhere, the stages of grief appeared: Denial, performed by Shiloh Keeler ‘25; Anger, performed by Adina Schnabel ‘25; Bargaining, performed by Alison Waller ‘24; Depression, performed by Brooke Auerbach ‘24; and Acceptance, performed by Grace Farina ‘24. Wearing suits, gowns, or ruffled pants, each dancer entered stage in splashes of black, brown, red, orange, blue, and green respectively. Perhaps these primary colors symbolized grief’s seemingly easy comprehensibility as captured in tears and visible distress, but also our own inability to fully grasp such simplicity. Lining up around the Grieving Person, each stage of grief proceeded to take a different pose, like a sculpture in some long abandoned garden. Then, flitting around, the Grieving Person visited each one, mirroring the curve of their arms or slant of their toes in a foreshadowing of the performance’s latter acts throughout Old Main. For example, as the audience was ushered from the chapel to a meeting room, or positioned by the stairways or outside an elevator, each individual stage of grief would appear and interact with the Grieving Person. Sometimes the emotions were gentle, like Denial’s careful swaying and balancing across a table.
Other times, the emotions were violent. Cruel, even, with Anger beating open fist against the Grieving Person’s shoulder as the room was bathed in an artificial red. Bargaining attempted to yank the Grieving Person down a staircase, and Depression tried to trap themselves and the Grieving Person in a slowly closing elevator.
Acceptance, though, was quiet. With a blank yet comforting face, Acceptance drew closer to the Grieving Person, the two matching in slow and balanced movement as the dance went on.
After interviewing Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24, the curtain was raised on some of the logistical aspects of this performance. For example, against a plethora of emotions, she was drawn to choreographing something that everyone in the audience could “connect to and interpret based on their own personal experiences.” Fortunately, or tragically, grief invades everyone’s life at some turn or the other. However, this universal emotion is never “the same for anyone.” Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24 was particularly driven by the grief of soon leaving F&M due to impending graduation, and was a “driving force” within her creative process. In that creative process, although each stage of grief presented its own unique challenges, bargaining was the most difficult as it is the “stage that is least understood by the general public.” Thus, it was through working on the performance’s composition that Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24 uncovered how to “show negotiation, conflicting emotions and thoughts, pleading, desperation, and defeat within just a few minutes” of choreography.
The thunderous applause at the end was more than well-deserved, and my only wish for the performance would be more seating. Old Main, though a marvel of old architecture, is outdated in accommodating large crowds. Thus, although I am technically the average height for a woman according to the National Institute of Health, there were moments where I was more exposed to other audience member’s shoulders than the actual dancers. However, the packed, and overpacked, rooms are a compliment in themselves to the overall campus and community interest invested into this stunning performance. Also, choosing a site-specific performance was intentional. Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24 was interested in “exploring the seen versus the unseen in the process of grief.” What do we allow people to see? What do we keep buried inside? Hosting the performance in Old Main allowed Kaitlyn Stauffer ‘24 to explore and present these abstract concepts in the physical space.
Teagan Durkin is the Opinions Editor for The College Reporter. Her email is tdurkin@fandm.edu.