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By Root 1284 0

to experience the unfolding of what I had envisioned, choreographed, and produced. It didn’t happen quite that way. The bear-sized Clinton Elliott, who was programmed to commence with an opening speech, departed from anything I’d written or directed. He started chanting in his Native American language, reaching into a pouch he had slung around his waist. He took out handfuls of tobacco, crumbling and scattering them over the stage floor, as he walked in circles and back and forth across the stage. Blessing the space, he continued his chant, calling on all participants, audience included, to celebrate and take part in the ritual about to unfold. My hair stood on end, one of the great moments in theater, and it lifted us right out of the Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden and into a sacred, timeless arena.

Leading to the climax of the performance, the Woman of the West (my daughter Charlotte, dressed as a Native American woman) refuses to bring the child, Rosebud, from the hole in the ground. “I must wait till all are here,” she announces. On cue, the two thousand New York City children streamed onto the stage, dressed as fish, birds, flowers, insects, plants, rocks, and trees. The dancers representing water were the last to arrive, streaming down the aisles of the theater and breaking onto stage, and when in place, the entire cast called out, “Show us the child!” The Woman of the West answered, “But now we must wait for the people to come.”

Two thousand children parted, backed away from the audience, and sat, as Tsering and Divas arrived. “We have come from the highest place to dance for you and see the child,” and the clumping Tibetan choreography Jampa and I had choreographed almost a year before began. The two thousand New York City children sitting in a semicircle watched, open-mouthed, without stirring or moving as the succession of guest children from the extremes of the earth gave us their dances. The only moment to equal the mythic power of Clinton’s opening chant was the sound and vocalizations made by the shaman from Yakutsk. Had Joseph Campbell been alive, he would have cried out from the audience, “That’s what I’ve been writing about all my life!”—being connected to the metaphysical, the collective, the essence and ancientness of it all. The rapture of it. And what a varied, gorgeous mosaic of the human family was represented by the array on that stage, the beauty of those faces—the Afar, the white doves. Daniella and Raul in their Chilean folk dance. Dear Sondra Toth, with her lilting water dance, the last of the “people” to dance.

Satisfied that all had assembled, the Woman of the West conjured Rosebud up from under the stage floor to stand high on a platform at the back. Rosebud appeared holding a circular drum in her arms, and as she beat, the entire cast responded, as if the stage floor itself was in the throes of an earthquake. She danced to the rhythms of her drum, causing two thousand multi-costumed children to respond in patterns across the floor until a rainbow-colored quilt had been formed. Rosebud was carried, as a floating form, above the dancers, threading through and among them, accompanied by Judy Collins’s song:

ROSEBUD’S SONG

(music and lyrics by Judy Collins)

Let us weave a blanket together today

Threads made out of silver and gold.

A blanket that will warm us

And keep us from the cold,

A blanket that will stretch from pole to pole

Let the cold stand with the snow.

With garnets that are pink and sapphires that are blue

Add the strands of opals and emeralds too.

Tapestry of wonder, tapestry of light

Tapestry to stretch from day to night.

Let the rocks chant to the waters

And the flowers to the trees!

Semiprecious jewels, rainbow-colored light.

My oceans and rivers flowing day and night.

Many-colored landscapes every form and hill

Make a bridge that carries me to you.

Let the fish and birds and insects

Every one of them embrace!

When the north greets the south

And the west goes to the east.

Let the highest touch the lowest!

Let the hot know the cold!

And the