Awakening
“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
-Martin Buber
We are neither intrinsically good nor inherently evil. We are autonomous. And when we awake to this notion of freedom and personal responsibility, and are released from the rigidity of dogma, absolute truths and the idea of an external agent, we are then able to live our own values. This means we can progress as a species, deciding at different points in time what is best for the collective whole. Moral relativity breeds empathy. The genuine sensation of compassion comes with understanding the plight, imperfections and fallibility of us all - and the very different struggles with which we are all faced. It is to realize that no two lives are the same, and yet we’re in this together - we are all we have. We all make mistakes, we all experience suffering and we all need help.
The universe has not told us why we are here - it may not know. There is no meaning beyond the meaning that we give to life. There is only a collective power to understand that virtues like kindness, generosity and compassion create a better reality for us all.
Written by: Keith Sutter and Devin Copeland
The Empathy Series
In a world plagued by continued chaos, empathy - one of our species’ most important survival techniques and one of humanity’s finest traits - is more important than ever.
Although we’re all individuals with unique struggles and experiences, our human ability to relate to one another's battles, and our willingness to respond to these hardships with action and understanding, could be our greatest solace in life, as well as our biggest hope for a bright future.
Within this series, each environment intends to inspire an existential question in regards to empathy, while each dancer’s reaction comments on one of our many shared emotions. My interest lies in the dark and light nature of the universe and our relationship to those forces - especially in terms of how we face them alone and together.
“Empathy is... communicating that incredibly healing message of, ‘You’re not alone.’”
― Brené Brown