A Tender Reflection
Dan Witowski has navigated living with and receiving support from various service-providers since early childhood. He has faced homelessness, abuse, and many other serious challenges in his years. He now joins us twice a week at Solaris. He was a guest last month at the Camphill Foundation’s spring benefit at the Yale Club in New York City. A video introduced by Rachel Shulman and shown toward the end of the evening served to shine a light on the meaningful lives that the Camphill Impulse on this continent can conjure. It primarily featured Camphill Hudson, our theater program and other peaks into our community’s robust daily life. Clips from an interview with Dan were featured throughout the video. He reflected on the struggles of his personal journey and his contentment with finding Camphill Hudson. The video ended with Dan sharing, “If God had created a place for people to go, this would be it.” |
A budding connection with a new Hudson arts organization
Timothy Banker, a former producer for NPR and a longtime theater producer, is currently the executive director for the nascent Hudson Public Forum. The Forum, with foundational support from the Galvan Foundation, is planning to begin cultural programming in an old foundry building (near the corner of Columbia and Green Streets) and to eventually find its home in the sprawling Community Tennis Building, also on upper Columbia Street. After meeting with Banker this past winter at Solaris, we invited him to attend Forgetful Divas at Hudson Hall. Afterward he shared some of his highlights of the show: Nicholas Natanson’s hilarious singing of "Why Don't You Read My Emails," Sean Barton’s stunning Capoeira dance with TeAnna Hedgepeth and Elias Rive’s comic offerings, all of which had the packed crowd cheering boisterously. “I think Jody’s direction in particular and the general organic creative approach to the piece was inspired, sure-handed and deep,” Banker shared. “The piece had such a sense of release, flow, joy and positivity. I was struck by how, on the one hand, the structure was loose enough to allow for character spontaneity and to include all the strange and wonderful cameos the cast could offer, but on the other hand, it also maintained forward momentum, a semblance of story and you were never exactly sure what was going to happen next. The way the cast supported one another was fantastic! In short, really good theater.” |