Secrets: Freeing The Hidden Story

Photo courtesy of Community Choreography Projects
Photo courtesy of Community Choreography Projects

by Melissa Reardon

On June 20, 21 and 22, Community Choreography Projects shares real life stories of local people for a charitable cause.

“If I were skinny I might like myself,” reads one handmade card. Another professes that someone was beaten by her husband but never told anyone. Other cards are humorous.

The anonymous “Note-able Secrets” exhibit hanging at Jubilee on Wall Street is riveting, both in the sense that the messages are powerful and undeniably honest and because it’s real, local people who had the courage to pronounce their most private secrets. Though the display came down at the end of May, it’s part of a larger event taking place this month at Diana Wortham Theatre.

June 20-22, Community Choreography Projects presents Secrets: Freeing the Hidden Story, a movement theater piece that features the distilled collection of stories and movements from 20 local cast members that have been collaboratively composed and structured into a choreographic style. Film vignettes by Erika Czerwinski and David Huff and storytelling by author Gregg Levoy and spoken-word poet Griffin Payne will be interwoven.

The subject matter is wide and deep, raising the questions of why we keep secrets and from whom, and what they really hold for us? According to Artistic Director Barrie Barton, this style of story sharing “conveys universal, ordinary, and extraordinary human messages, enabling participant and audience to see beyond stereotypes and perceived barriers to connect with others.”

Throughout the performance, the “Note-able Secrets” exhibit will be on display in the theater lobby, and proceeds from ticket sales benefit Four Seasons Hospice, a nonprofit offering end-of-life care to families in Western North Carolina.