LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
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Still SUNDANCING After All These Years |
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by Murray Archibald | ||||
Eleven years. Its hard for me to believe that this will be the eleventh year of SUNDANCE. Its also hard for me to believe that my partner, Steve Elkins, and I have been a couple for twenty years. I mention the two together because, as many of you know (since weve talked about it every one of those eleven years!) SUNDANCE was started to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Over the years it has become much more than thatbut for us it will always be a personal as well as a public celebration. A few days ago I got out a couple of old photo albums that carefully record the first years of SUNDANCE. In those days we still had the time, energy and inclination to put together things like photo albumsand we looked so young! How could eleven years make that much difference? As I turned the pages, I couldnt help but compare that first year with where we are in 1998. Originally, the event was to be an outside pool/dance party called A Sun Dance. Fortunately, we had made arrangements for rainy weather, so when that weekend blew up in a nasty and never-ending storm, we moved the party to the newly opened (and now legendary) Strand. That year we raised $6,400; last year, that figure topped $114,000. That first year there were eighteen hosts; last year there were more than 300. As I looked at that first list of names, I couldnt help remembering all the people who have helped SUNDANCE evolve into the event that it is today. I must confess, that short list of names and those few photographs opened the floodgates in my mind and the memories keep popping up. Some of the photographs make me laugh out loud and others bring a quick and biting tear to my eye. Many of those in that first host listing are still SUNDANCE hosts todayDon Baum, Steve Hayes, Robert Lancelotta, Mary Beth and Bob Ramsey, Emilie Paternoster, Tom Poston, and Jodi Renbaum. SeveralMichael Brossette, John Moore, Dick Sewell and John Van Meterare no longer with us, victims of the disease that brought us all together in the first place. SUNDANCE has always been about life and about death. It has always been a celebration of the time we have to spend with friends. It has always been a passionate momentat once joyful and full of tears, bubbling with laughter and life, and at the same time full of great sadness. Native Americans who first created and danced the SUNDANCE did not lightly participate. It was to them a commitment, a ritual, a rite of passagesomething they respected and carefully chose to be a part of their lives. So, too, in our modern adaptation of this dance have we chosen to be a part of something bigger. So, too, have we committed ourselves to a future that is better and brighter and filled with hope. "But its just a dance" some of you may exclaim. But not to me. To me it will always be a place where lives cross and hearts change. To me it will always be a sacred, wondrous adventure that leaves me a different person in September than I was in August. To me it will always reflect all the elements of life that surround us. Thus it is that SUNDANCE 98 has been called: RAINBOW XI: COLORS OF LIFE. Thinking back over all the years, I am reminded of the many different "colors" that have come together to create the brilliant SUNDANCE rainbow. Our gay culture uses the rainbow so often, that at times Im afraid we run the risk of trivializing our best symbol. We see it so much we almost forget that it stands for all the diverse elements of life working togetherin balance. I guess that from my vantage point that is what SUNDANCE has always been and why it has for years been the rainbow party. I am always touched by the number of people who, though they may not see one another at any other time, come together year after year to make SUNDANCE happen. As I take this stroll down SUNDANCE "memory lane," certain moments seem to hang, suspended like tiny bubblesclear and clean and perfectly preserved. How can I ever forget how determined Randy Weaver was not to miss, what I think he knew would be, his last SUNDANCE. Though he died only a few weeks later, he was there that night, in his wheelchair and out on the dance floor that he loved so much. Or the year that the Strand closed and we moved SUNDANCE to the Rehoboth Convention Centerits been a great place over the years, but at the time we were terrified that it wouldnt work at all. And forever etched in my mind is the moment last year when Steve and I met in the middle of the dance floor and he told me that we had passed our goal of $100,000or all the way back to the first year we added the auctionor Mark Thomas and Richard Erskine in the DJ Booth at the StrandBob Ramsey powdering the dance floorthe look on Steves face when he saw the bill for 600 yards of white georgettethose columns that Ive repainted so many timesAllen Jarmon and Ward Ellinger as they moved all those cubes again...and again...and againthe morning after...again...and again...and again... And so it is that once again we come back to another year of SUNDANCEanother year of memories and miracles, another year of celebration, another end of the summer spectacular. It takes a great many people to make an event like SUNDANCE happen. If you would like to become a host or a sponsor of SUNDANCE 98 just call or come by the CAMP Rehoboth Officewell take all the help we can getafter all, were still SUNDANCING after all these years! |
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LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 8, No. 10, July 31, 1998. |
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