anywhere out of the world: Dance the Sun Dance @2020

Dance with the flow

So I’m hanging out in the mountains of Utah for the third year in a row with the many celebrities, journalists, filmmakers, and publicists
gathered here for the annual Sundance Film Festival.

Brainchild of Robert Redford, Sundance offers a peek at the movie year ahead for indie cinema. And there’s my brain food.

I had never liked the holidays
but this year it has been particularly irritating as even after they were over
I knew that there was another date lingering three weeks away
that I was anticipating
without knowing exactly what to anticipate.

It all felt so abstract, even though well known from previous years.

I got on an airplane after a couple of New York goodies days and nights,
early in the morning in January,
when it’s still dark,

and arrived in Salt Lake City where the sun was very bright.

There’s paparazzi at the baggage claim and I couldn’t figure out who they’re taking photos of.

I got driven up into the mountains with Megan, Kate, Lauren and Terry and they talk about their work and the last time they were here and they laugh
and finish each other’s sentences,

and I wonder why they seem so calm about all this.

Sometime after I bought groceries.

Ended up not eating them because I didn’t have any time to eat them
and arriving at a beautiful house that feels exactly like the house I imagined
when I imagined this scene in my head
I realized that THIS has begun.

Every morning Evan picks me up
and I join Cassian and Susan and David and Arielle and Zen and Caroline for breakfast and after the first day it starts to feel like what I’ve always done.

Cassian tells us stories
that arc over years and continents
and impossible circumstances,

and always end with a movie getting made.

He’s been doing this for a lifetime.

So there were days, nights, full of conversations, introductions, screenings, coffees, parties, panels, post-film discussions,

and car rides
where Cassian is kind enough to sit in the trunk
because it’s a six-person car
and there’s eight of us.

I come home at night
more like early morning, a
nd I know I must be tired.

But the fireplace is cozy,
and everyone talks about writing and movies and this strange party game
about a kangaroo
that someone started the night before.

By Saturday, Main Street swells with more bodies and voices and lines out the doors
and the energy that only really comes
with thousands of people being temporarily
in the same place
at the same time
for the same reasons.

And I could only marvel at how enthusiastic everyone is.

I sit in rooms where people spend hours talking about how they made movies:
step-by-step, with the details and disasters and anecdotes I’ve always loved to hear.

I realize that these people are like me.

This is what moves them,
this is all they want to be doing.
And I want to jump up from my seat and say

“I am this way too!”

I am so tired but I don’t really notice.

I meet people I’ve seen in photos.

They are kind, helpful, generous with their time.

The altitude does strange things to my body:

I can’t fall asleep and I can’t wake up,

my ankles and my face feel puffy.

I drink more water.

I buy a gingersnap cookie
from the concessions stand
before the third movie that afternoon
and it’s perfect.

The day I left, I asked Cassian
if I was on the right track,
if there’s something else I should be doing,