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THREAD. THIS is what art & rhetoric contribute... to unite us in the invaluable gift of Democracy. The brilliant TEMPERED STEEL concept of . @Schwarzenegger's message is vital to remember, as we journey these last few days toward Biden admin - after the shock of #insurrection. 1/x https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240
As Gov Schwarzenegger points out, we are strengthened by the continual challenges we face - to temper the steel of our Democracy into a strong & flexible force for all... A force to trust & defend. I'd like to share a personal story about an immigrant who, like Gov S, came to 2/x
the U.S. to work in freedoms of Democracy. This man was an athlete & an artist - a skater, a dancer, a choreographer. And he never forgot the horrors his family saw as WWII approached - when the fascist threat to his beloved brother-in-law (a Jewish man) forced the family to 3/x
secretly move his sister & her husband out of Germany for safety. As Hitler gained power, this champion skater was drafted into German army, where he ended up on the Russian front. A teen with little tactical background, he found himself lost & freezing in open countryside. 4/x
Severe frostbite nearly killed him before he wandered to an isolated farm. The night before the operation to amputate his toes, he discovered new skin growing under the blackened crust of frozen tissue; but he was never to skate again. Instead he turned to ballet, training at 5/x
at Essen's famous Volkwang Schule where he developed into a principal dancer for the Tanztheatre of Kurt Jooss. His artistry was tempered in powerful Expressionist concepts as a cast member in The Green Table - Jooss' masterpiece portraying the Board 6/x
Room maneuvers of money, war, & power. Now, as an artist commanding soloist standing, he moved to Berlin to further his career; but as the Berlin Wall was erected he fled the city UNDER a bus to avoid the checkpoint. He vowed not to live under the 7/x
oppression of communism, as he had endured fascism. After working as a star in Chile, he came to NYC to pursue his career as a powerful choreographer from the Expressionist tradition. His hard hitting artistic messages portraying the price of war & the atavism of contemp life 8/x
landed him backers for his own company - & he eventually founded The Ohio Ballet. His name was Heinz Poll. He never let us - as students - forget the Constitutional freedoms we enjoy in the U.S... & how we must never take that for granted. His work pounded that essential 9/x
fact into our youthful heads. Some of us work as artists - choreographers, teachers, & activists - & our process is informed by being TEMPERED in that fire of awareness... of history, of our responsibilities to freedoms, of vision of Democracy that moves us forward together. end.
