A Gift of Healing: Naples woman's dance troupe transforms tragedy through music and dance
'A Gift from Janie' ... Janie Horton, part-time Naples resident, brings her healing dance and music from California to the Sugden Community Theatre stage
Friday, September 1, 2000
By NANCY STETSON, Staff Writer
Most people pick up the phone or use e-mail when they want to send a message.
Part-time Naples resident Janie Horton writes a tune or helps choreograph a dance.
On Sept. 8 and 9, Campbell will perform original compositions and dance at the Sugden Community Theatre in downtown Naples. She sees it as her way of giving back to the community.
The performance is based on a self-released CD of her music, "A Gift From Janie."
"I was in the process of composing my own music," Campbell says. "I had the idea of putting dance imagery to the music. I wanted to take the dance portion and create an image of what the music is trying to communicate with people."
So she approached Sarah-Jane Measor, her dance teacher in California, where Campbell lives when she's not in Naples.
"She was intrigued and delighted to work with me on that," Campbell says. "She said that not very often do choreographers get to work with virgin music, something totally new to everybody."
"I thought it was a wonderful idea," Measor says. "She asked me to choreograph some movement to her music. I thought it was so beautiful. We are exactly on the same wavelength. It worked out very well."
Campbell performs with a group of women from her dance class in California, including Measor. They call themselves Metaxy.
"Metaxy is a Greek word that means realm of the soul," Campbell says. "I was looking for a one-word description that would encapsulate the kind of communication I want to have with people." She intends her shows to be not just entertainment, but a vehicle for healing.
"This is straight from my heart," she says. "I know what it is to have tragedy. I lost my father to leukemia. My son's father passed away at a young age. I went through a divorce."
But, she says, she's using all these painful experiences to create something positive: "It all accumulated to where I could use the talents I have to let people know that someone has gone through similar things," she says. "It's to create a space for people that says: this is someone who's been there and understands. And maybe by that understanding, people will walk away comforted by it."
The dance performance follows piece-by-piece the music on Campbell's CD, from "The Gift" to "Journey" to "Questions" to the final step, "Acceptance."
The performance begins with Campbell playing a grand piano. A dancer comes out on stage, and Campbell soon joins her, mirroring her motions. Toward the end of the piece, a jewel box comes down from the ceiling. "These are my gifts; I present them to the audience," Campbell says. She places the box at the front of the stage. "The gift box stays (there) throughout the performance," she says.
During "Questions," 20 different questions appear on a screen. Campbell says she culled some of them from a hospice magazine. "Questions are normal," she says. Some of the questions flashed on the screen: Does this ever stop? Will I ever have peace? Why does this hurt so? How will life be for me now?
 |
IF YOU GO
|
| Janie Horton, "A Gift From Janie"
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9
Where: Sugden Community Theatre, 701 Fifth Ave. S., Naples
Cost: General admission $17; tickets for seniors $12
Information: 263-7990
|
After Campbell and company performed "A Gift From Janie" in California, two women approached her. They were especially moved by "Questions."
"One was a woman who had had a bout with infertility," she recalls. "One other was fighting breast cancer. She wouldn't go to any support groups; she didn't want to talk about it. She said, 'I'm thinking about it all the time, why would I want to talk about it?'
"But when she saw 'Questions,' she started to cry. She felt that I knew what it feels like. She was so happy to find something that expressed what it felt like to deal with breast cancer."
Campbell envisions the troupe performing for hospices, support groups, counseling centers.
"I found the show moved me on a very deep level," says Palo Alto hypnotherapist Jo Ann Baldwin, who also studies dance with Measor. "I find it to be a healing show. It moves you into a hypnotic state, it is trance-inducing in a positive way," she says. "It touches people, depending on what emotional state they're in, how they're interpreting what they're seeing. Janie's music is extremely soothing."
Baldwin adds that she's played Campbell's CD while doing deep relaxation and hypnotherapy with clients.
Campbell studied piano and came from a musical family. Her father, who was an architect, played in the local symphony, so Campbell attended all the performances.
"I was first intrigued with dance when I went to a symphony rehearsal for ballet and saw the ballerinas stretching and rehearsing," she says. "That got me interested in studying ballet."
While in high school, she became involved with the pompom squad; as a captain during her senior year she was responsible for creating dance moves to the music.
But she decided to focus more on music.
She received a bachelor's degree in piano performance with distinction from the University of Oklahoma in 1979. But in the early '90s, she went back to school and received her MBA from Nova University in Florida.
"It's an interesting combination, isn't it? " she says.
Her business background led to work in the health-care field. She began studying dance again when she turned 40.
"I picked it up again," she says. "I had time to donate to it. I started up with toe shoe point classes. It's wonderful. It strengthens your back, your posture."
Her dance performances are a culmination of all she's done: dance, music, business, health care.
She thought she'd be terrified on stage, but found that she's very much at peace.
"Once I sit down to play, and I'm out there with these wonderful women, I feel very much at peace, calm," Campbell says. "And I'm happy to have the opportunity to do something like this."
According to Campbell, peace in life begins with acceptance.
"That's when healing begins, whatever events happened to you, whatever's come across your plate. Your tragedy might bring something good to someone else. That acceptance begins to bring peace of mind and heart.
"We can grow, even if tragic things happen to us."
Last look ...
Sarah-Jane Measor (choreographer), Jenny Percer, Jill Faragher and Gay Richard perform the song, "Breathe." The dance invites audience members to participate in an exercise of deep breathing as they watch.
Photo courtesy Tom Mehren
