In his book Having Everything Right: Essays of Place, Kim Stafford describes the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia assigning place-names based on the natural characteristics of a location, the events that took place there, or the feelings that the site instilled. "Where Salmon Gather," "Sound of Dripping Water," and "Where Dzo'noq!wa Cried Out Oh," were among the names the Kwakiutl people assigned to their surroundings. He'lade, translating to "Place Having Everything Right," was of particular meaning, as it was the name universally given to exceptional locations. What is your he'lade?

I held him as he died. My vision blurred as I tenderly pushed a fallen lock of hair out of his eyes. The music reached a crescendo and the curtain fell on scene two.

I love the theatre. I have never been educated in the theory behind the placement of actors or the interjection of color and light, but I love it nevertheless. Whether I fill the role of spectator or actor, the quick interplay of movement, dialogue and sound never fails to delight me. A well performed production is as graceful as a play in basketball. The guard screens the wing, the centre’s eyes dart left as she accelerates to the right and cross- passes to a streak of red racing towards the ring through a sea of green. To the beat of pounding shoes and a roaring crowd, the ball traverses a gentle arc and falls through the net with a ‘swish’. Curtain falls.
I love taking a story and converting prose to conversation, metaphor to music and imagery to movement. This year, I made my first foray into the abstract art of body theatre. Body theatre is a form of enactment that uses no props or costumes, and makes use of verse rather than conventional dialogue. The actors themselves serve as props. I wrote, directed and acted in such a play that revolves around a girl’s struggles with anorexia. What, as a story, might have been plebeian, or even boring, as a play can be spiced, diced and made interesting. Each scene, with the addition of such subtleties as the right music, lighting and collective movement, can be transformed into a single wave of emotion, which after gathering momentum, hits the audience with formidable force. As it was so aptly put by Eugene Ionesco, a well-known playwright, “Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.” The theatre is my he’lade.
For a while, when I stand before a crowd in the red sari of a milkmaid from Gujarat or the silken robes of a king, time stands still. For a time, I am truly a different person, someone who is never at a loss for words, who acts exactly how she feels and makes the entire crowd feel her pain, her joy and her laughter. After the cast has taken its bows and the curtain falls for the last time, the return to everyday reality comes as rather a shock. It seems a little like the world has suddenly changed from technicolor to black and white.
I have experienced exhilaration in many different contexts; the intense emotion of winning a championship game and the elation that comes with solving a complex sum in calculus. Nothing, however, can compare to the rush of adrenalin that knocks me into a different world when I’m standing on a stage in someone else’s shoes.